Cylons invade Star Trek

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Lucky » Thu Jun 25, 2015 8:11 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote: 1. You said "tiny"; is it pejorative?
50 megatons is nothing any ship in the UFP would scoff at.
The main problem being propulsion. It's absolutely primitive and it just a rocket fired from a launching ramp.
Lucky wrote: Tiny compared to the low end photon torpedo calculations I've seen which are about double that.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Ok. It depends on the era too. But in many ways, it's far more than enough to wreck any Trek planet in an alpha assault, which the Cylons are capable of.
It's no more dangerous then a cloaked vessele at best
Mr. Oragahn wrote: 2. Seems similar, although the BSG model is clearly totally stable and doesn't destroy a stupid amount of space when exploing. The stability might be gained from the smaller jumps. Highly speculative. All in all, it shows that Trekverse is ill-equipped to tackle this technology against a faction that has mastered it.
Quite the opposite. It shows that the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons at least have defenses in place for dealing with such technology or groups like the Dominion would have been able to easily land anything any where they wanted, and the Dominion wouldn't even need to fix the flaws.
No, it only shows that someone within a very late era Federation vessel, after having access to the tech in some fashion, just found a way to both calm it and prevent the jump from happening.
Like if you could, for example, choke a combustion engine (it still needs air after all) and also find a way to regulate the fuel valve of an engine that's rather unstable by design.
Limiting the amount of particle also means disturbing the normal process within the coaxial warp engine. In no other way it means they had built one or could even reproduce one.
And at best, it means at that time, they might have a way to stop a jump from that particular kind of engine, that is, prevent a ship from moving off, not moving in.
This still leaves Trek worlds exposed.
1) You aren't responding to what you quoted.

2) The jump drives are no more dangerous to a planet then a cloak.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:04 pm

Lucky wrote: It's no more dangerous then a cloaked vessele at best
Sure, if in your book, crossing vast expanses of galactic space in the blink of an eye and placing in geosynchronous position above cities some kilometer wide weapon platforms filled with a wide variety of nuclear ordnance, from long range missiles to MIRVs, from multi-kilotons to multi-megatons and one button away from an alpha strike, isn't much of a problem!

Because, you know, that is exactly what a Basestar is, when it's armageddon ready.

Contrary to Cylon War Battlestars (and perhaps Basestars too), the latest Basestars used the same firing ramps for all types of ordnances, meaning it was absurdly quick to them to fire nukes the moment they'd jump into a battlefield. As demonstrated many times on screen btw.

Not counting the Raiders and Heavy Raiders, all of which can easily be armed with multi-kiloton nukes, quickly enter atmosphere and even accomplish their own short-range FTL jumps.
1) You aren't responding to what you quoted.

2) The jump drives are no more dangerous to a planet then a cloak.
1.A. You'll have to do more than that to dismiss my arguments. Like, say, actually provide counterarguments instead of handwaving my entire paragraph that precisely demonstrated why what happened in the episode of Voyager isn't as fantastic as you make it out to be.

1.B. Also, what I quoted doesn't even begin to prove anything of what you claimed about each of the factions you named being able to defend against that kind of FTL tech and the great strategical advantage it provides.

2. Repeating yourself won't change anything.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by sonofccn » Fri Jun 26, 2015 11:47 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Sure, if in your book, crossing vast expanses of galactic space in the blink of an eye and placing in geosynchronous position above cities some kilometer wide weapon platforms filled with a wide variety of nuclear ordnance, from long range missiles to MIRVs, from multi-kilotons to multi-megatons and one button away from an alpha strike, isn't much of a problem!
Well I suppose that really depends on exactly how you define a "problem". Other than being able to cross "vast expanses of galactic space" none of what you wrote is particularly different or more problematic than any Galor cruiser or random bird of prey who carry "long range missiles" from "mulit-Kilotons to multi-megatons" range. Hell a 24th century Klingon battlecruiser can start a "plasma chain reaction" which can destroy all trace of life on a world. Ref. The Next Generation season six episode "The Chase".

So depending on the era, planet in question and assigned defenses a Basestar popping in existence could be the start of a bad day or it could simply impotently bash against a world's shield while a ground base locks a photon torpedo onto it.

So no I don't think a Basestar is an insurmountable or outside contextual problem for the Federation to contend with.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Jun 27, 2015 9:21 pm

A Basestar would start being a tissue paper starship from ENT already. I haven't seen a Basestar cope with anything highly nuclear and laugh at such firepower, they even go down to what would be heavy gigajoulish kinetic ordnance after a long engagement.
I leave the Pegasus out because her main frontal cannons raped Basestars and are something of a higher caliber which I'm yet to gauge properly.

The NX-01 already has that kind of firepower. However, what matters is the amount of fire a ship guarding a world can deliver at once. After all, Cylons don't park only one ship above a planet. They're extremely cautious too and plan a lot in advance.

Now, in Trek, the failure of some ships to attack UFP high profile worlds might easily be explained by the fact that a ship at warp isn't invisible and still can be intercepted.
It literally has to cut a whole swathe of the UFP territory before reaching important worlds, meeting enemy ships en route.
Besides, during the Dominion war, some bugships managed to reach Earth on their last leg and reach the surface, although they dealt minimal damage. I don't recall any sign of a shield there.
New Trek movies show that even in a more military oriented setting (because of what the Naranda has caused in terms of ideological changes), Earth has no defenses other than another group of starships.
It's been threatened twice, there has been no ground to orbit cannons or torpedo launchers used, and no sign of any planetary shield whatsoever.
Same deal for Vulcan, which had nothing to throw at the Naranda (and that's even assuming the Naranda had previously wiped out a defensive armada, an information I didn't pick), nor anything to hide under.

Clearly, around 225x, in a setting wherein the UFP clearly put more emphasis on big ships and guns instead of exploration, there's still no adequate defense to properly protect Earth or Vulcan, and therefore most likely the same applies to any other UFP world.

That's the problem with the Cylons, they'll maximize their chances. We know that for an absolutely certain fact.
They have no way to survive in any kind of battle, but they can lay waste to a planet.

They may not even need to be as cautious as they were for the Colonies.
For some reason, they had something against humans but apparently not against the worlds themselves, as they clearly aimed at specific targets while clearly trying to minimize devastation; we saw one city that wasn't too damaged while some others were truly ruined and torched, and some Centurions were even seen taking care of planting trees.

If for any kind of silly reason, the Cylons really want to kill with what they've got, no matter if it's suicidal or not (and that they can do too, especially with a Resurrection ship lying around somehow) they can threaten many worlds in several of Trek eras.
They'll die a lot too.

If they care about survival and long term pacification, they'd have no reason to attack the UFP because they stand no chance in combat and they wouldn't want to become the number one priority on a list of military targets.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by sonofccn » Sun Jun 28, 2015 3:46 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote: The NX-01 already has that kind of firepower. However, what matters is the amount of fire a ship guarding a world can deliver at once. After all, Cylons don't park only one ship above a planet. They're extremely cautious too and plan a lot in advance.
Likely variable.

As shown here starting at 1:10 a Connie can fire a clutch of five or six photon torpedoes in about three seconds while here starting at 3:47 shows the Defiant shifting through three separate targets over four seconds.
As to how that stacks up with other starships in use during this time period such as the Miranda class or the Soyuz class your guess is as good as mine.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Now, in Trek, the failure of some ships to attack UFP high profile worlds might easily be explained by the fact that a ship at warp isn't invisible and still can be intercepted.
It literally has to cut a whole swathe of the UFP territory before reaching important worlds, meeting enemy ships en route.
I freely admit the Cylons jumpdrives will provide challenges to Starfleet. However the threat an individual Basestar presents is not all to dissimilar and in fact slightly inferior to any bog standard ship of any of the Federations contemporaries nor can one reasonably assume the security of “high profile worlds” is solely dependent on a starship intercepting the enemy. Not in a Verse where a solitary rouge ship could easily end civilization as we know it or where two known rivals to the Federation employ cloaking technology.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Besides, during the Dominion war, some bugships managed to reach Earth on their last leg and reach the surface, although they dealt minimal damage. I don't recall any sign of a shield there.

Are you sure you’re not confusing the Breen attack from “The changing the Face of Evil” {DS9-07}? That’s the only time I remember Earth being attacked during the Dominion War.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: New Trek movies show that even in a more military oriented setting (because of what the Naranda has caused in terms of ideological changes), Earth has no defenses other than another group of starships.
It's been threatened twice, there has been no ground to orbit cannons or torpedo launchers used, and no sign of any planetary shield whatsoever.
Same deal for Vulcan, which had nothing to throw at the Naranda (and that's even assuming the Naranda had previously wiped out a defensive armada, an information I didn't pick), nor anything to hide under
Well the NuTrek movies occur in an alternate timeline created due to temporal interference. It’s debatable how much relation they pose to Prime-Trek. Personally I don’t give them much weight.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Clearly, around 225x, in a setting wherein the UFP clearly put more emphasis on big ships and guns instead of exploration, there's still no adequate defense to properly protect Earth or Vulcan, and therefore most likely the same applies to any other UFP world.

Defenses will likely be variable, during the Dominion War Betazed was said to have an obsolete defense, but with the existence of planetary shields from at least the 2260’s {Whom Gods Destroy TOS-03}, ground based phasers and photon torpedo systems{Gambit part 1 TNG-07}, the apparent existence of members planets having local defense fleets{ Unification part II TNG-05}, and 22nd century humanity building the Verteron array I believe the Federation can adapt and compensate far more easily to the threat the Cylons pose than the inverse.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Jun 29, 2015 8:35 pm

sonofccn wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote: The NX-01 already has that kind of firepower. However, what matters is the amount of fire a ship guarding a world can deliver at once. After all, Cylons don't park only one ship above a planet. They're extremely cautious too and plan a lot in advance.
Likely variable.

As shown here starting at 1:10 a Connie can fire a clutch of five or six photon torpedoes in about three seconds while here starting at 3:47 shows the Defiant shifting through three separate targets over four seconds.
As to how that stacks up with other starships in use during this time period such as the Miranda class or the Soyuz class your guess is as good as mine.
nBSG fairly low tier in terms of warfare, they're quickly outclassed against the advanced weapon and defense systems used by the UFP, and that already around the mid 23th century. They're clearly not fit for that kind of engagement.
Even their fighters couldn't be sacrified efficiently to intercept torpedoes, as these devices are very sturdy.
All bombardments from that era and beyond are absolutely suicide missions for most of the Basestars. A very few might get out.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Now, in Trek, the failure of some ships to attack UFP high profile worlds might easily be explained by the fact that a ship at warp isn't invisible and still can be intercepted.
It literally has to cut a whole swathe of the UFP territory before reaching important worlds, meeting enemy ships en route.
I freely admit the Cylons jumpdrives will provide challenges to Starfleet. However the threat an individual Basestar presents is not all to dissimilar and in fact slightly inferior to any bog standard ship of any of the Federations contemporaries nor can one reasonably assume the security of “high profile worlds” is solely dependent on a starship intercepting the enemy.
Yet nothing proves they rely on anything else.
When the Borg Sphere threated Earth in First Contact, and after having the Cube coming close to the planet and well before the Sphere even attempted to travel time, the UFP had more than enough time to aim phasers or torpedoes cannons at the Borg. Nothing was shot.
When the Whale Probe came close to that big space station, and later Earth, not even a single beam or projectile was shot, if only as a final deterrent, despite the alien ship being known to be potentially highly dangerous.
Did we even see torpedoes fired at V'ger?
Not in a Verse where a solitary rouge ship could easily end civilization as we know it or where two known rivals to the Federation employ cloaking technology.
But then again such a ship still has to reach the planet and managed to survive.
As for the cloaks, if you talk about Klingons, I don't recall them being used while at warp. Which means they'd be fairly obvious when arriving. Besides, for some reason, that supposedly massive advantage hasn't allowed to steamroll their opposition. It's most efficient if you don't know they're coming, so you're not actively looking for them.
In other words, all of these end-of-world scenarios can only happen if the attackers manage to push through all the enemy territory while traveling at non discrete warp speeds.
This is nothing like having to face a foe who can literally slip under the radar up to your door mat.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Besides, during the Dominion war, some bugships managed to reach Earth on their last leg and reach the surface, although they dealt minimal damage. I don't recall any sign of a shield there.

Are you sure you’re not confusing the Breen attack from “The changing the Face of Evil” {DS9-07}? That’s the only time I remember Earth being attacked during the Dominion War.
Perhaps, I only remember they weren't big ships I think.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: New Trek movies show that even in a more military oriented setting (because of what the Naranda has caused in terms of ideological changes), Earth has no defenses other than another group of starships.
It's been threatened twice, there has been no ground to orbit cannons or torpedo launchers used, and no sign of any planetary shield whatsoever.
Same deal for Vulcan, which had nothing to throw at the Naranda (and that's even assuming the Naranda had previously wiped out a defensive armada, an information I didn't pick), nor anything to hide under
Well the NuTrek movies occur in an alternate timeline created due to temporal interference. It’s debatable how much relation they pose to Prime-Trek. Personally I don’t give them much weight.
It's fairly possible that the alt-UFP has spent less resources on cultural expansion and discovery, but it's also very much expected and quite well shown on screen, twice, that they considered outer space and even greater dangerous place than previously thought.
In other words, there's little logic to be found in them not having seriously put most efforts on weapon and defenses development, and newtonian propulsion I'd say too, since they didn't care about building the Monsterprise on Earth.
Bar a few odd cases, like the choice of pulse weapons over phasers (the Defiant uses a lot of them anyway, which was a more warlike vessel so perhaps there's a sliver lining here), there's no reason to ditch those movies. If anything, they represent a buffier Trek.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Clearly, around 225x, in a setting wherein the UFP clearly put more emphasis on big ships and guns instead of exploration, there's still no adequate defense to properly protect Earth or Vulcan, and therefore most likely the same applies to any other UFP world.

Defenses will likely be variable, during the Dominion War Betazed was said to have an obsolete defense, but with the existence of planetary shields from at least the 2260’s {Whom Gods Destroy TOS-03}, ground based phasers and photon torpedo systems{Gambit part 1 TNG-07}, the apparent existence of members planets having local defense fleets{ Unification part II TNG-05}, and 22nd century humanity building the Verteron array I believe the Federation can adapt and compensate far more easily to the threat the Cylons pose than the inverse.
The planetary shield is a complete outlier. If Trekkies want to maintain its validity, a solid explanation is needed as to why it's so rare, not to say unique. Do we even know if the shield was really an UFP-made shield and not something salvaged from a great civilization for example?

The use of ground weapons is simply not confirmed once against threats which would have totally warranted an appropriate defensive fire.

When I think about bringing examples of real evidence, I'd point at a several solid cases from Stargate. Starting with the Tollan had ion cannons on the ground, firing arcing and homing energy projectiles from various countries that were one-shoting Ha'taks. Then we had Earth itself fire two naqahdah-enhanced rockets to destroy Apophis' ships. There was the Antartica outpost releasing drones and destroying Anubis' entire fleet. In an altverse episode, we had grounded Atlantis repel an alien warship that way. I think there also was a note about the outpost used to repel an Ori crusader ship. There also was a Lantean turret clearly capable of aiming at mobile small targets in orbit of a planet, proving its accuracy (and a super strong likelihood of homing projectiles), plus an entire field of debris of former Wraith warships to confirm that it had already been used before.
Finally, there's the Dakaran disintegrator, hidden in a temple, which wipes away biological tissues (or specific energetic bonds), capable of reaching into space and would therefore prove immensely useful against the vast majority of enemmy fleets, and was precisely to use once to that effect.
As for large scale shields go, it's more limited but still crystal clear. We know Atlantis could stretch her shields to cover most of a planet. And a Prior could plant a shield that would grow and encircle an entire planet after sucking tons of energy, and after that crush said planet (it's an extra function). Those are abilities we have evidence of and which can be safely and knowingly associated to known factions.

There's so little of that in Trek.
Unless there's something new presented, I think I'll stick to my opinion, that against non-Trek forces, anyone with an armada and a FTL tech that is clearly non-warp based has the capability to seriously hurt the UFP or any faction with a similar level of technology.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Jun 29, 2015 8:39 pm

That is only from a military perspective. I still think the Cylons wouldn't be fools and would have no reason at all to be aggressive. They have far more to win by being pacific, and way too much to lose.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Jun 29, 2015 9:00 pm

Huh, there's also that:
Try to understand this critical point: Cylons are vastly superior to humans in terms of intelligence, information, communication and multi tasking. Any technology a human can develop, a Cylon can develop, but faster and more perfectly. Federation humans will be quickly met, and then exceeded by the Cylons.
That might come from the webisodes, with a new kind of Cylon gloating about its superiority, but I don't recall them being particularly that advanced.
The Colonials had a tech that looked quite impressive before the war.
The repeated hackings within their systems and anything networked, despite their tons of firewalls and what-have-you, was the liability they had to purge, so they moved back to crappier systems.
Until decades later, when they considered they had a good defense system and could again allow themselves to use networked machines, only to get owned because a trojan was planted inside the new control protocol by a Cylon working with the main conceptor of the system itself.

Before the war, the Colonials are shown to have a good mastery of deep and complex virtual-reality environments and also of holograms.
Meanwhile, the new Cylons focused on hybridization and produce some impressive systems in the FTL connection to Resurrection ships (transfer of all a brain's "data" at FTL speeds without any presence of any detectable implant), better FTL and self-repairing Basestars.
Clearly their focus was on anything related to the increase of the lifespan.
Oh, and their "parents" still built a biggie ship too, although with a likely limited FTL ability since it took them millennia to cross space from Earth-I to the 12 Colonies, iirc. (at sublight, it would be impossible).

So, anyways, the whole superbrainy Cylon idea surprises me. Heck, their biggests advances in the hybridization was precisely allowed with the arrival of the peaceful original "Cylon" humans.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by sonofccn » Tue Jun 30, 2015 1:32 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Yet nothing proves they rely on anything else.
When the Borg Sphere threated Earth in First Contact, and after having the Cube coming close to the planet and well before the Sphere even attempted to travel time, the UFP had more than enough time to aim phasers or torpedoes cannons at the Borg. Nothing was shot.
When the Whale Probe came close to that big space station, and later Earth, not even a single beam or projectile was shot, if only as a final deterrent, despite the alien ship being known to be potentially highly dangerous.
Did we even see torpedoes fired at V'ger?
Well first this appears to be an argument of absence of evidence equals evidence of absense which I do not agree is a wholly logical, rational path to take. We, after all, can not be privy to all actions, thoughts or reasonings in play during your examples.

Second judging from this image the Borg Sphere appears to still be quite some distance from Earth judging by how large it appears in comparison. Off the cuff and using the Mark I eyeball I wouldn't say the Sphere has to be within weapons range nor that said hypothetical gunnery officer has to fire the split second the Borg sphere enters range.

Third the Whale Probe's "message" played hell with Star Fleet systems. It seems illogical to assume phasers would be an exception.

Fourth I know nothing concerning the Motion Picture, never could sit through it, so please post what you feel is revelent information.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:But then again such a ship still has to reach the planet and managed to survive.
As for the cloaks, if you talk about Klingons, I don't recall them being used while at warp. Which means they'd be fairly obvious when arriving. Besides, for some reason, that supposedly massive advantage hasn't allowed to steamroll their opposition. It's most efficient if you don't know they're coming, so you're not actively looking for them.
In other words, all of these end-of-world scenarios can only happen if the attackers manage to push through all the enemy territory while traveling at non discrete warp speeds.
This is nothing like having to face a foe who can literally slip under the radar up to your door mat.
First and foremost you have not established the apparent ease in detecting your bog standard warp bound starship. An example or two of them detecting an opposing starship at range would be apreciated.

Second the episode "The Defector" {TNG-03} hinges on Klingon ships being able to travel while cloaked since Picard covertly brings two Bird of Preys with him into the Neutral Zone.

Which brings us back again to the inherent vulnerability of relying solely on the interception model of defense.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Perhaps, I only remember they weren't big ships I think.
Then we have a problem because we never get to see the Breen attack, only its aftermath, so I truly have no idea what example your talking about.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:It's fairly possible that the alt-UFP has spent less resources on cultural expansion and discovery, but it's also very much expected and quite well shown on screen, twice, that they considered outer space and even greater dangerous place than previously thought.
In other words, there's little logic to be found in them not having seriously put most efforts on weapon and defenses development, and newtonian propulsion I'd say too, since they didn't care about building the Monsterprise on Earth.
Bar a few odd cases, like the choice of pulse weapons over phasers (the Defiant uses a lot of them anyway, which was a more warlike vessel so perhaps there's a sliver lining here), there's no reason to ditch those movies. If anything, they represent a buffier Trek.

You presume the only point of depature is after the Naranda arrives. Due to time travel happy antics that is, at best, a risky assumption. Just taking Kirk, whose life we know has been altered, he traveled to the 30's, 60's and 80's and the odds of each of those instances being exactly the same in NuTrek as it was in the Prime-Trek's timeline is remote. And each change begets further changes down the timestream.

It was a freak accident which sent the Enterprise back in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" {TOS-01}after all and without that and therefore knowledge of sling shotting around a Star to effect time travel Kirk may not be able to travel back in time during "The Voyage Home" which could mean transparent aluminum isn't "invented" by the same man or time as Prime-Trek's.

So I would stand by my statement NuTrek is an alternate-Timeline and has no concrete bearing on Prime-Trek.

Edit: Hat tip to 2046 and his Temporal Incursion Fallacy. I knew I read about this idea somewhere.
The planetary shield is a complete outlier. If Trekkies want to maintain its validity, a solid explanation is needed as to why it's so rare, not to say unique. Do we even know if the shield was really an UFP-made shield and not something salvaged from a great civilization for example?
A solitary example is all I need unless you have an actual counter-example of which you have provided little to none.

Further my argument is not that Earth or Vulcan must have planetary shields and are therefore uber-protected, indeed as I stated I think defenses are highly variable. My argument is that Trek has demostrated various technologies which would badly nullify the threat of a Basestar and can more easily adapt and emplace them then the cautious, calculating Cylons.
The use of ground weapons is simply not confirmed once against threats which would have totally warranted an appropriate defensive fire.
The Verteron array would disagree. A ground based installation designed to swat asteriods and more than capable of blowing an NX class starship apart. "Terra Prime"{ENT-04}
Then there is Arena {TOS-01} where a colony's "phaser batteries" are explicitly mentioned having been taken out in the Gorn's first salvo and the aformentioned Gambit where a random Federation outpost posses at least theater shields and two "phaser banks" and possibility torpedoes.

So that would be three concrete examples.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:When I think about bringing examples of real evidence, I'd point at a several solid cases from Stargate. Starting with the Tollan had ion cannons on the ground, firing arcing and homing energy projectiles from various countries that were one-shoting Ha'taks. Then we had Earth itself fire two naqahdah-enhanced rockets to destroy Apophis' ships. There was the Antartica outpost releasing drones and destroying Anubis' entire fleet. In an altverse episode, we had grounded Atlantis repel an alien warship that way. I think there also was a note about the outpost used to repel an Ori crusader ship. There also was a Lantean turret clearly capable of aiming at mobile small targets in orbit of a planet, proving its accuracy (and a super strong likelihood of homing projectiles), plus an entire field of debris of former Wraith warships to confirm that it had already been used before.
Finally, there's the Dakaran disintegrator, hidden in a temple, which wipes away biological tissues (or specific energetic bonds), capable of reaching into space and would therefore prove immensely useful against the vast majority of enemmy fleets, and was precisely to use once to that effect.
Ironically almost every example is litterially "salvaged from a great civilization" and even the Tollan's ion cannons were unique to them.
There is little evidence, for instance, the Goa'uld employs any defense systems other than fighters and starships or that they would be anything but vulnerable to a Basestar popping into existence loaded with a belly full of Atomic bombs.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:There's so little of that in Trek.
Unless there's something new presented, I think I'll stick to my opinion, that against non-Trek forces, anyone with an armada and a FTL tech that is clearly non-warp based has the capability to seriously hurt the UFP or any faction with a similar level of technology.
And you are entitled to your opinion.

For myself, suffice it to say I find your argument unconvincing and see no reason to alter my own.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:03 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Yet nothing proves they rely on anything else.
When the Borg Sphere threated Earth in First Contact, and after having the Cube coming close to the planet and well before the Sphere even attempted to travel time, the UFP had more than enough time to aim phasers or torpedoes cannons at the Borg. Nothing was shot.
When the Whale Probe came close to that big space station, and later Earth, not even a single beam or projectile was shot, if only as a final deterrent, despite the alien ship being known to be potentially highly dangerous.
Did we even see torpedoes fired at V'ger?
Well first this appears to be an argument of absence of evidence equals evidence of absense which I do not agree is a wholly logical, rational path to take. We, after all, can not be privy to all actions, thoughts or reasonings in play during your examples.
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AbsenceOfEvidenc ... eOfAbsence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_ ... of_absence

I see your point, but context does matter, things can't be generalized.
When something is logically expected, its repeated absence reinforces the idea that it is absent as a whole.
The more the test is done and the results always return an absence instead of a presence, the more this actually forms an evidence of absence in itself.
The only appeal to ignorance there could be would involve some extremely convoluted reason about how the non use of defensive measures, yet when absolutely needed, would descend from bizarre choices and exceptionally odd circumstances.
Second judging from this image the Borg Sphere appears to still be quite some distance from Earth judging by how large it appears in comparison. Off the cuff and using the Mark I eyeball I wouldn't say the Sphere has to be within weapons range nor that said hypothetical gunnery officer has to fire the split second the Borg sphere enters range.
By the time it's entering the time vortex thingy, it seems to be a lil' bit closer.
Also, wouldn't this, by your own admission, be inside the effective range of a long range beam weapon or even more, a torpedo silo? And what would prevent a Borg ship from firing a megaton beam right into a city as soon as it comes out of warp, even before any shield could conceivably be raised?
Aren't torpedoes supposedly coming with long range as long as they can adjust their trajectory?
The battle was so intense and the consequences so high that there would be no reason for Earth not to track the Borg and fire torpedoes as soon as possible.
One would say possible means a shorter range than what we see. Problem is, what we see is more than enough for any ship to start shooting guided ordnance at a planet.
Third the Whale Probe's "message" played hell with Star Fleet systems. It seems illogical to assume phasers would be an exception.
Unless the Probe's effect had a range of many, many Earth diameters, there's little reason for not seeing shots coming at it. Even stray shots if calibration was screwed over, doesn't matter. The "ship" makes no communication that can be decipherer, deactivates all nearby ships and stations and is headed for Earth.
That alone would have made the entire Federation extremely worried about the intention of that giant maki roll.
Fourth I know nothing concerning the Motion Picture, never could sit through it, so please post what you feel is revelent information.
Well, to summarize, the heroic Enterprise manages to enter the super "cloud" surrounding the alien supership (as large as Earth's orbit), but was then unable to communicate.
Meanwhile, V'ger still went on, entered the Sol system, and fired super energy balls towards Earth. Balls far more powerful than anything fired at the Klingon flotilla or the UFP sensor station.
In other words, the UFP was facing an immense enemy that proved to be hostile anytime an engagement happened, including a mere probing, killing humans and Klingons alike, and the thing was aimed at Earth and wouldn't reply.
Mr. Oragahn wrote: But then again such a ship still has to reach the planet and managed to survive.
As for the cloaks, if you talk about Klingons, I don't recall them being used while at warp. Which means they'd be fairly obvious when arriving. Besides, for some reason, that supposedly massive advantage hasn't allowed to steamroll their opposition. It's most efficient if you don't know they're coming, so you're not actively looking for them.
In other words, all of these end-of-world scenarios can only happen if the attackers manage to push through all the enemy territory while traveling at non discrete warp speeds.
This is nothing like having to face a foe who can literally slip under the radar up to your door mat.
First and foremost you have not established the apparent ease in detecting your bog standard warp bound starship. An example or two of them detecting an opposing starship at range would be apreciated.
First of all, I base this largely on the fact that warp involves a ship moving through real space, even if some form of subspace is involved to build a field around the ship at some point.
The simple fact that real space is warped is a huge indicator of something is moving in. Even if you don't see the thing that moves, you see its trail.
But perhaps I'm missing something here.

Secondly, your claim hardly simplifies the situation, as it means any warp capable ship or weapon could easily sneak onto any other faction, ship, base or world and unleash hell before everyone's morning buzzers would go off.

Now, a little search on the web gave me this:

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Ionization_trail
http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_signature

It also reminded me of the very plot of First Contact: the Vulcans passing close to the Sol system and detecting a warp signature: which means it can be detected at long range, largely allowing for preemptive actions against any arrival, and that already back before even the Adventures of Captain Archer and the Frontier Busters.
We learn that Moon's gravity would even block Ent-E's warp departure from the Vulcans' sensors (at least, those they had back then).
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/question ... st-contact

With knowing such weaknesses and tricks, gravity fields would be extra-scanned, for sure.

This, to me, represents enough evidence that warp trips aren't that discrete.


On an unrelated note: "Even when traveling at impulse the ship left behind a warp trail. (ENT: "Broken Bow")"
This would strongly support my opinion that superior impulse speeds are achieved with the help of the warp systems in some way.
Second the episode "The Defector" {TNG-03} hinges on Klingon ships being able to travel while cloaked since Picard covertly brings two Bird of Preys with him into the Neutral Zone.
There certainly has to be some significant drawback to that, or a limitation to the cloaking system.

First, because even IF a planetary shield was available to Earth, it wouldn't be up at all time. It would take massive amounts of energy to cover more than the planet's diameter at all time and provide the same level of strength at any point on the force field. So since it's expected the shield not to be up at all time, any warp capable cloaked ship would have no trouble to even enter Low Earth Orbit and bomb an entire nation in the blink of an eye.
It is even worse for guns and silos, as they're active defense measures and can only be used when a target is known.
Which brings us back again to the inherent vulnerability of relying solely on the interception model of defense.
Only if we know for sure that interception isn't sufficient. Do we? Let's see.
The cloaking system could have such a limitation that if you're not probing the space for it, you wouldn't see it. In other words, it's largely efficient against passive detection systems.
It's quite unlikely that the regions around important worlds of the UFP and other high traffic points are not monitored actively.

Space is big so we can buy that two cloaked ships moving at warp managed towards the rather vast Neutral Zone weren't spotted.
This article at MA hints at how the cloaking tech is not impenetrable, and that when it is to current sensor tech, it's source of much worries.

Then later, in the early 24th century, you have the treaties banning such tech.

Finally, on the spot, in the altverse, by 2259, there already was a treaty in place banning such tech.

Also, lots of the advances in cloaking tech and sensors capable of breaching their fields were gifts from the future.

So we can safely consider that interception is a very potent method of stopping enemy ships.
Perhaps, I only remember they weren't big ships I think.
Then we have a problem because we never get to see the Breen attack, only its aftermath, so I truly have no idea what example your talking about.
I thought some had at least crashed to some degree on the planet. Ok, anyway, whatever happened, no shield stopped those loons from doing some damage.
Now, iirc, the damage was quite limited, so it's possible the ships were shot down and only some debris hit the planet.
No matter what, >stuff< did reach the surface. That largely discards the planetary shield theory.
Mr. Oragahn wrote::
It's fairly possible that the alt-UFP has spent less resources on cultural expansion and discovery, but it's also very much expected and quite well shown on screen, twice, that they considered outer space and even greater dangerous place than previously thought.
In other words, there's little logic to be found in them not having seriously put most efforts on weapon and defenses development, and newtonian propulsion I'd say too, since they didn't care about building the Monsterprise on Earth.
Bar a few odd cases, like the choice of pulse weapons over phasers (the Defiant uses a lot of them anyway, which was a more warlike vessel so perhaps there's a sliver lining here), there's no reason to ditch those movies. If anything, they represent a buffier Trek.
You presume the only point of depature is after the Naranda arrives. Due to time travel happy antics that is, at best, a risky assumption. Just taking Kirk, whose life we know has been altered, he traveled to the 30's, 60's and 80's and the odds of each of those instances being exactly the same in NuTrek as it was in the Prime-Trek's timeline is remote.
And each change begets further changes down the timestream.
But then it would mean each time an episode or a movie featured time travel, previous chronology would be considered prime, anything after that event would be alternative.

How is Kirk time traveling in future times (at a date that is beyond the scope of the two new movies) affecting the argument here?
If anything, anytime the crew returns to 'actual' time, it's a whole assumption that everything was like it was before. Past events could have been somewhat different in some respects, yet not too different to prevent the normal time events from occuring. Like in the new movies, wherein most of what is expected from the global canvas does actually happen (although there will be much major differences now, because the Naranda wasn't entirely stopped and Vulcan was removed, and the relations with Romulus and anything related to its peculiar star are also going to lead to major political story arcs).
Btw, as far as we can observe, the overall geopolitical situation in the new movies isn't different from the original timeline, which itself was hit a bajillion times by way too many time splits that could have affected it in ways we'll never be able to know.
All in all, NuTrek isn't going to dodge V'ger or the whale probe. Nor that it matters much because this is talking about future events and the real issue here is knowing if the alt-timeline is that different from the prime one, and to what extent.
It was a freak accident which sent the Enterprise back in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" {TOS-01}after all and without that and therefore knowledge of sling shotting around a Star to effect time travel Kirk may not be able to travel back in time during "The Voyage Home" which could mean transparent aluminum isn't "invented" by the same man or time as Prime-Trek's.
That, itself, could be a major event that would make anything posterior to *that* movie a new timeline.
Actually, the eugenics wars and all that clearly point to a "past" which is very different from what we know.
Star Trek clearly has a major arc and some core rules, and it quite stops here.
Now, for all we know, the Naranda's arrival was only 20 years before the first new ST movie, right? It's going to be quite a logical stretch here to claim that all the weapons and defenses from some 20 years prior were particularly backward to what they'd be in the prime timeline 20 years later. After all, the Naranda event sits between way-after-ENT to two-decades-before-TOS.

I don't see how the tech you think the UFP has in terms of passive defenses would be so utterly absent from "curent" alt-timeline (255x) just because NARANDA!

If anything, logic absolutely dictates a need for a strong defense system to stop things which are clearly eering way too close to the level of an Out of Context Problem.
Any defense and weapon protocol would have been put on steroids due to the sheer shock of this insane event, not the reverse.
So the fabled super minds of the UFP would have largely been moved to any kind of science and research that would favour major breakthroughs into defenses and weapons.
So I would stand by my statement NuTrek is an alternate-Timeline and has no concrete bearing on Prime-Trek.
I work from what can be compared (and to the limits of knowing how utterly restricted the budget of TOS was in comparison to the rest of Trek).
The "prime" old Spock did reference the battle against Khan. So his timeline seems to be identical enough to the one built by many shows and movies.
Then you have a reference to captain Archer and his dog. Plus we have all the characters of primeline, showing that events have not been disturbed far enough to prevent their birth, growth and reunion as the future crew of the USS Enterprise, and they all have personnalities in line with the prime timeline too.

Edited for better junctions with points made in...

Part II
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by sonofccn » Tue Jul 07, 2015 1:23 pm

@ Mr. Oragahn

Is a further reply coming? You appear to have responded to approximately half of my previous response. Thank you in advance and my apologizes for any inconvenience of my query. It is certainly not my intention to hound or rush you.

-Respectfully Sonofccn

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:22 pm

sonofccn wrote:@ Mr. Oragahn

Is a further reply coming? You appear to have responded to approximately half of my previous response. Thank you in advance and my apologizes for any inconvenience of my query. It is certainly not my intention to hound or rush you.

-Respectfully Sonofccn
Oh, sorry, there's a whole bit missing.
I'm editing this.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:51 pm

And now, the conclusion.



Mr. Oragahn wrote: The planetary shield is a complete outlier. If Trekkies want to maintain its validity, a solid explanation is needed as to why it's so rare, not to say unique. Do we even know if the shield was really an UFP-made shield and not something salvaged from a great civilization for example?
A solitary example is all I need unless you have an actual counter-example of which you have provided little to none.
It is all one needs to show that such a device, a single one, exists somewhere. It doesn't prove anything else beyond this mere isolated case.
Further my argument is not that Earth or Vulcan must have planetary shields and are therefore uber-protected, indeed as I stated I think defenses are highly variable. My argument is that Trek has demostrated various technologies which would badly nullify the threat of a Basestar and can more easily adapt and emplace them then the cautious, calculating Cylons.
The thing is, the Cylons do indeed calculate and gather intel before any attack. The fact that they look human is pure bonus for basic civilian infiltration and, eventually, low security infiltration too.
For one, just today, what civilians can gather in terms of data from internet and insider info is very good to have a solid idea of what our countries can use and deploy.
Cylons would obviously be aiming for more than that.

-- On the specific topic of a planetary shield:

The thing is, contextually, this one single example doesn't suffice at all. If anything, it raises much more questions than it solves.
I haven't had time to look into this particular case in more detail, so I assume it's a kind of battle-able defensive force field. But it might be something else.
All in all, it's present there, on this penitentiary, while a similar type of defensive system, much useful and reliable and therefore well expected in the direst of conditions, is just nowhere to be seen.

My stance is just more measured and doesn't require assuming a lot about a ton of worlds against we has been observed countless times now.
Considering the utter absence of manifestation of that kind of defense in conditions we can more than safely deem perfect for its use, and then on the other hand the presence of such a force field as a rather exceptional event in some remote place, I'm forced to consider that the prison's field is a clear exception, and this warrants a specific explanation.

All I can forward at the moment is the idea that it's very specific to this world and perhaps not UFP made.

-- On a more global approach to all defense systems:

The lack of torpedoes or pulses or beams being fired from the ground in the cases I refered to is very damning.

In fact, I may say it doesn't even matter if they have any ground defenses. Because if it were true, history has shown that they seldom use them in appropriate times.
Now, that wouldn't be a satisfactory conclusion to this discussion but technically, that is precisely what we're left with.

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: The use of ground weapons is simply not confirmed once against threats which would have totally warranted an appropriate defensive fire.
The Verteron array would disagree. A ground based installation designed to swat asteriods and more than capable of blowing an NX class starship apart. "Terra Prime"{ENT-04}
Then there is Arena {TOS-01} where a colony's "phaser batteries" are explicitly mentioned having been taken out in the Gorn's first salvo and the aformentioned Gambit where a random Federation outpost posses at least theater shields and two "phaser banks" and possibility torpedoes.

So that would be three concrete examples.
Those are interesting. The first case, however, is old. Some reasons could explain why, in the meantime, such systems weren't used. I don't know ENT enough, but this example could only support your position if, for any clearly hostile world or large stellar object the NX-01 has approached, the Enterprise has been shot at from the ground.

The second case shows that ground phasers were not only easily spotted by the Gorn (did they even have former intel? Cylons would), but we also taken down. Did the Gorn use a cloak of some kind?

Third case is the most impressive, oddly enough for its size. But I notice that is an outpost, and perhaps that is what legitimates the presence of such fixed battle systems, as they cannot put anything better: mobile delivery weapon system, aka starship with guns.
They may be extremely isolated and quite exposed. How long would it take for a solid enough and war-capable starship to intervene in time and protect said colony? Where was it standing, in fact?
I doubt all colonies would be that equipped too.
Plus it's one of limited coverage after all, not a planetary wide casting model.

There seems to be a thing going on in Trek with, for a lack of better terms, resembles a strong distate for ground units, and that perhaps quite extends to ground defenses in general, although one might find exceptions. All appears to be largely starship-centric, down to quite a serious dogmatic level.

We have even seen in DS9, in war time, that orbital defenses aren't ubiquitous but rather special, to the point of being quite unique and remarkable, to the point of being the sole focus of impressive battles.
Again, the emphasis clearly is on ships.

Mr. Oragahn wrote: When I think about bringing examples of real evidence, I'd point at a several solid cases from Stargate. Starting with the Tollan had ion cannons on the ground, firing arcing and homing energy projectiles from various countries that were one-shoting Ha'taks. Then we had Earth itself fire two naqahdah-enhanced rockets to destroy Apophis' ships. There was the Antartica outpost releasing drones and destroying Anubis' entire fleet. In an altverse episode, we had grounded Atlantis repel an alien warship that way. I think there also was a note about the outpost used to repel an Ori crusader ship. There also was a Lantean turret clearly capable of aiming at mobile small targets in orbit of a planet, proving its accuracy (and a super strong likelihood of homing projectiles), plus an entire field of debris of former Wraith warships to confirm that it had already been used before.
Finally, there's the Dakaran disintegrator, hidden in a temple, which wipes away biological tissues (or specific energetic bonds), capable of reaching into space and would therefore prove immensely useful against the vast majority of enemmy fleets, and was precisely to use once to that effect.
Ironically almost every example is litterially "salvaged from a great civilization" and even the Tollan's ion cannons were unique to them.
Sure, but hardly relevant though. The point being that these factions did use them, there's no doubt about it.
Actually, I forgot two other examples.
One doesn't differ much from Atlantis as it involved a sister cityship, largely buried and with only its main spire sticking out of the ground. Its defenses were used by a family of aristocrats who had the equivalent of the ATA gene in their lineage, the one that is necessary to active the devices.
The second one is more interesting. It's about a less advanced planet whose people had access to a native tech that would probably be on the level of new BSG. They did make use of ground-to-orbit missiles against the Prometheus, at a long range btw. This action was triggered by the Prometheus' crew dumping their unstable naqahdria-powered hyperdrive in a very high orbit of that planet... they weren't really close to this world, but the core's explosion affected its civilian infrastructures and they rightfully retaliated.

On the other end of the spectrum, when we go into Ascended level of things, we have a lady who was condemned to remain stuck on a world to protect its people; therefore would use massive thunder-energy storms cast from the far horizon to blast away an entire Wraith fleet.

That's all I can think of for now when it comes down to planetary-scale shields or ground based long-range weapons.

There are other cases of theater shields and curious force fields of limited area, not relevant to this discussion.

There is little evidence, for instance, the Goa'uld employs any defense systems other than fighters and starships or that they would be anything but vulnerable to a Basestar popping into existence loaded with a belly full of Atomic bombs.
Indeed.
Most of the Goa'uld lived according to an organized system they mastered a long time ago. They had no active enemy; if they'd find a potential one, they'd either avoid it or see if it could be destroyed or subjugated.
The Goa'uld hardly were the most efficient guys out in there in terms of long term war strategy. They did have plenty of exotic devices, concealed bombs and nasty spies, but their entire life has centered around throwing expandable troops against other troops during ground battles, as part of some fancy lite wargame sessions, under the patronage of Supreme System Lord Ra who seemed to be satisfied with the status quo and enjoyed drifting every once a while between Abydos and Ibiza.
However, their most important worlds tended to be protected by at the very least one single Ha'tak, and the assets on most worlds were concentrated on an area around a stargate (sometimes shielded by a force field), limiting the range of orbital area that would need to be defended. Besides, SG teams avoided like a plague places which were called fortress worlds, the equivalent of Goa'uld strongholds.
Of the worlds we see, most of them actually have little material value but are more symbolic ones, like "capture the hill" things, with charisma pointed added. If pushed, some Goa'uld wouldn't even hesitate to burn them to the ground themselves.
Those which hold a higher value, like some special assets, often are "best kept secrets".
The most annoying part, a consequence of their system, being that a fallen Goa'uld would often see his or her assets claimed by the victor. If the vanquished Goa'uld were to survive, he or she would submit to his or her new master.
Many of them live on their ships too, so it's somehow difficult to get rid of them by looking for cheap ground targets. Only the most privilegied Jaffa actually see their "god".
The Goa'uld simply have a lifestyle that is very unconventional.

Anyway, the topic isn't about what Stargate's factions can do, but about the demonstrated existence and use in appropriate times of ground defenses (super shields or GTO weapons), as a mean of comparison against Star Trek's abysmal nonuse of equivalent systems in equally dangerous if not totally desperate situations.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by 2046 » Wed Jul 08, 2015 3:41 pm

O, your argument seems to require that you lobby for a number of counterfactualisms regarding Trek. I think perhaps you should reconsider this path.

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Re: Cylons invade Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Jul 09, 2015 8:29 pm

2046 wrote:O, your argument seems to require that you lobby for a number of counterfactualisms regarding Trek. I think perhaps you should reconsider this path.
A good number of cases of presence and use of defenses are presented for eras, around TNG+, for which I consider that even the chances of a succesful surprise buttsex assault are near to null, unless the Cylons really waste a good chunk of their entire fleet and fighters on one single high profile planet.
Of course, considering their meticulous planning in advance of such kinds of assaults, they'd probably pass anyway and, as I said at the very beginning, would gain far more by playing nice. They would likely not hold any grudge against the UFP like they did against the Twelve Colonies.
But for earlier periods, say post-ENT to early TOS or slightly pre-TOS, I simply see no evidence of the UFP having anything worthwhile to protect most important worlds against a proper genocide from outer space.
Surely, the farther into the future we look within that selected timescale, the higher the chances of the Cylons being kicked hard in return. The Cylons would need much more Basestars than what I'm ready to give them, and they'd need to have the Colony Ship placed at a very far distance. Pretty much each flotilla would be on a suicide mission.
Mind you, those limitations apply if they work with the vanilla Basestars. They might do whatever is necessary to obtain some Trek tech, whatever is available to bridge the gap to some degree in order to slap some form of shielding and perhaps phaser banks or pulse guns on their motherships, to get a better chance at, at least, remotely threatening enemy ships or at least keeping them at a distance long enough to finish the mission, and also adding more direct firepower and versatility against ground targets. They wouldn't be looking for proper space battles but more efficient ways to achieve their kamikaze missions.
Their FTL still remains a solid advantage in early Trek. For the later part of it, I don't think it will matter much. It would give them better legs to run away.

Free plot of the week: Perhaps one thing they could try would be to help the UFP to move into robotics. That's a domain the Cylons know very well.
Then, if their motivations are still fueled by hatred of humanity and extends to anything that is remotely humanoid and non-Cylon, then maybe after half a century of mass producing advanced "droids", they'd do their typical machine uprising thing and throw the UFP into mayhem.
That's stuff for the realm of fanfiction though.

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