Starfleet Jedi

Just saw this not too long ago, apparently I missed out on this:

http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthre ... 14&page=18

Let's just quote her here:

It's explicit in First Contact that the forty ship force at Wolf 359 -- 39 destroyed, 1 survivor -- was every single ship which was in range to protect Earth, with the sole exception of the Enterprise-E. In a situation where the most important single system in the entire Federation was threatened with annihilation, Starfleet surely scrambled every single possible starship to intercept that Cube -- and that was merely forty ships.

Ignoring the mistake with BoBW with FC...forty ships only? Let's take a look back at that timeline.

We're first told about the Borg's confirmed siting, we get this from Hanson:

HANSON [on monitor]: We're coming with every available starship to assist, Captain, but the closest help is six days away.
PICARD: We'll try and keep them occupied until you arrive.
HANSON [on monitor]: I know you will. Hanson out.

So it'd take the fleet approximately six days to reach the Borg. This is somewhat strange, because at maximum warp, the Enterprise D chases the Borg cube for 2 hours, forty minutes, three seconds. Just before they take it out of warp, they had seventeen minutes left, but lets add another ten minutes there, assuming the ship had maybe seven minutes left in her.

So, we get 2 hours and 33 minutes.

Then we get this from Hanson in part two:

HANSON [on monitor]: In less than twenty four hours, this armada's going to hit that Borg vessel with everything we can muster. Either they survive or we do. As for Picard. A great man has been lost. Your Captain. My friend. Commander Riker, I hereby promote you to the field commission of Captain. The Enterprise is your ship now. Congratulations. I wish the circumstances were different.

In other words, in less than a day's notification that Earth was going to be attacked, Earth was able to gather 39 starships to defend the capital. This clashes with Hanson's earlier quote, but it might not--Hanson might have been refering to other ships than the 39 starships, which could possibly have been a sort of home defense fleet between say Vulcan. These ships may have had standing orders not to go to Picard's help so as to defend the core of the Federation.

That or the Enterprise D is much, much faster than the rest of the fleet, which seems unlikely.

In other words, in roughly a day, JC is complaining that the UFP's force of 39 ships is proof of a small fleet. That's hardly the case. It's just the case of not enough ships being available to fight against the Borg; ie, being six days away, most likely spread out trying to find the Cube.

Sacrifice of Angels happened years after the Battle of Wolf 359, and it's already canon that the sheer magnitude of the Borg threat caused Starfleet to initiate a massive shipbuilding program, including the development of Starfleet's very first class of dedicated warships: the Defiant-class "escorts".

Not really. The Defiant class was shelved when the Borg threat faded.

While the Defiant was not ultimately put into production, the mere fact that Starfleet was permitted to invest R&D funding into a ship designed for the sole purpose of combat operations -- something previously considered utterly unthinkable by the peace-oriented Federation -- gives a pretty good idea just how terrified of the Borg they were.

Yeah, because if the US Navy encountered a super ship capable of beating them in 39 to 1 odds without so much as breaking a sweat, I'd think they'd be pretty fucking terrified too.

Even so, Starfleet is clearly counting ships as small as Danube class runabouts and Peregrine class fighters -- both of which are formally considered starships and issued NCC numbers just like the Enterprise -- in that six hundred ship figure.

Two problems with your theory honey.

1) There were no Runabout class ships visible in that armada.

2) Peregrines fighters aren't considered to be starships. You'd realize that if you'd actually listened to Kit's argument of the fact that they've never been given an NCC number or stated to have one...but why let anything like evidence stop you?

This is pretty well confirmed by what we actually see on screen -- dozens upon dozens of capital ships, but many more of the little Peregrines.

Yeah, someone would expect that. Typically, fighters and bombers outnumber capital ships by a great deal. But that doesn't mean the US Navy considers bombers to be navy ships. It also makes me ask where the Dominion's massive fighter numbers were.

Or did the UFP actually beat the Dominion not just at two to one odds--or by four to one odds, or possibly more? One would think that if at least half of the UFP's fleet consisted of fighters/runabouts (which would get smacked around as we've seen), the Dominion would have steam rolled them.

I think it's important to keep in mind that the destruction of the Founders' planet was a high-risk joint gambit by the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order; the fact that the Founders considered the destruction of the combined fleet to be a blow sufficient to entirely remove both organizations as threats to their plans can only mean that those twenty ships represented nearly every single major warship under the control of both organizations and that those ships could not be replaced for quite some time.

The Tal Shiar and the Obsidian Order are intelligence agencies; they're not supposed to have ships. We already know that the Obisidian Order secretly built their ships and chances are the Tal Shiar either conficsated a few ships or built their own.

This brings up another key point: the scale of warfare in the Star Trek universe during the TNG era is very small, with the loss of twenty ships at the Omarion Nebula being considered a fatal blow to the Tal Shiar and Obsidian Order combined and the loss of thirty-nine ships at Wolf 359 being considered a major catastrophe for the Federation Starfleet. This is entirely consistent with the fact that the Federation is stated to consist of only "over 150" (implying less than 175, and certainly less than 200) member planets as of 2373; Starfleet is likely on the order of several hundred capital starships ships at most, making the loss of thirty-nine of them a serious fraction of its entire strength

The one hundred fifty number doesn't concern colonies and such, as was clearly spelled out in DS9 and Voyager.

Basically, we know that Sisko was talking about capital ships, not the fighters or the runabouts given that we've never seen runabouts used in fleet engagements nor do fighters have registries (and therefore aren't refering to fighters)--otherwise, we might as well count the shuttles and runabouts located in the Galaxy class starships.

So, taking these numbers, the number we're told for the fleet is roughly 600 ships for the UFP, made up of elements from the rest of three different fleets. Elements can refer to many things, but they don't typically mean half or all--as in ever. At the very least, we could take the intended force as an entire fleet--ie, 900 ships. Then again, we also saw that the Dominion had over a thousand ships, so it could be that a full fleet is 1,000. Going with that, we get at least ten thousand ships.

However, this seems at odds with logic and statistics regarding the NCCs. Ie, we have 75,000+ starships during the Dominion War. We've seen that NCCs rise with the production of ships--right from the original NX, to early 100s TOS (ie, the Kelvin), to mid and late TOS (ie, 1701 Enterprise and 2000 Excelsior). Over the hundred years, we've reached the 75,000+ figures.

Now, the Runabouts do factor into that--but not all that much. Ie runabouts are auxilery craft assigned to Starships such as the GCS and Starbases. Now, we know that there are around roughly 700 starbases in the Federation, giving us 2,100 runabouts if we assume they supplied three to everyone of them. We could also assume another hundred (at most) for large starships that might make use of it--which is really highballing it, but whatever.

Total Runabouts: ~2,100

Also keep in mind that the Runabouts were put into production in 2368 and were probably pushed out by the time of the Dominion War (ie, the one that Sisko gets to replaced a loss runabout had a fairly low registry number, suggesting they weren't being built) and probably before then, so production probably ceased as late as 2372, when the Dominion threat was mounting and the Klingons were starting shit.

It's also worth noting that the UFP was using older ships. Ie, ships like the Miranda. Inf act, only Connies and older were really kicked out of active service. In other words, the UFP was tossing out every NCC. First, let's say that every ship 1800 and below were put out of service for good. Let's assume say, a 25% loss on total ship product. That brings us down to 55,374.75 ships. Now let's take away the danube classes (2,200) and we get 53,174.75 starships.

According to the writers of the show, they assumed Starfleet had around 30,000 starships at one time--which is a good chunk of the total number here. If we assume, given the major losses and damages the fleet had taken, that between ship loss and damages, the fleet had only 30,000 active ships at any time, we'd be looking at an average war-time fleet.

Now, Starfleet was desperate, so it was probably taking ships, retrofitting them, and tossing them out on the front lines as cannon fodder, but Starfleet has always kept old ships around for at least around a hundred years (long hull life?).

High end, their fleet should consist of 50,000 starships roughly--with lower ends being logically around 30,000. At the end of the war, we're probably looking at the UFP fleet being around 25,000. This would really point to what sort of toll the war took on Starfleet; ie, half of its entire force being eradicated by the war, not to mention starbases, which if we assume similar losses, means they probably have 525 our of the original 700.

Logically, later ships should be having NCCs of 90,000+ to 100,000 if we go logically.

Mith wrote:So it'd take the fleet approximately six days to reach the Borg. This is somewhat strange, because at maximum warp, the Enterprise D chases the Borg cube for 2 hours, forty minutes, three seconds. Just before they take it out of warp, they had seventeen minutes left, but lets add another ten minutes there, assuming the ship had maybe seven minutes left in her.

So, we get 2 hours and 33 minutes.

The opening of the Deep Space Nine pilot episode "Emissary", confirms that Picard was held captive for 6 six days:

On Stardate 43997, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise was kidnapped for six days by an invading force known as the Borg. Surgically altered, he was forced to lead an assault on Starfleet at Wolf 359.

Discounting the 24 hours until the battle, and adding back in the E-D's time spent hiding out in the Paulson Nebula, we still get about 6 days from the time that Admiral Hanson notes that help is 6 days away, although we do not know if that is 6 days away from where the E-D was at the time, or from any other possible location. So 40 starships within 6 days time, not including the E-D herself, which would make 41.

By the way, why are you posting an SB.com thread here?
-Mike

Mith wrote:So, taking these numbers, the number we're told for the fleet is roughly 600 ships for the UFP, made up of elements from the rest of three different fleets. Elements can refer to many things, but they don't typically mean half or all--as in ever. At the very least, we could take the intended force as an entire fleet--ie, 900 ships. Then again, we also saw that the Dominion had over a thousand ships, so it could be that a full fleet is 1,000. Going with that, we get at least ten thousand ships.

You missed that the fleet, while originally to be made up of elements from the Second, Fifth and Ninth fleets, only elements of the Second and Fifth had time to arrive before being forced to depart early to stop the minefield from being brought down.

ROSS: Are you sure this is reliable?

SISKO: I've known the courier for five years. I trust him.

ROSS: Then we have a problem. According to this, the minefield's coming down in three days. The Ninth Fleet won't be here for at least four.

So we got 624 starships gathered based on elements from just two fleets, not three. Also, you need to remember that the Dominion late in the war had 30,000 starships. It seems odd that the combined alliance of Federation, Klingon, and Romulan forces could not match that, or nearly so, nor did it seem likely they could have pulled off the invasion of Cardassia as seen in "WYLB, without overwhelming numbers, and the Romulan represenative Velal in "Dogs of War" woukd not have been concerned about the loss of "thousands of ships" in making the attempt.
-Mike

Mith wrote:
So it'd take the fleet approximately six days to reach the Borg. This is somewhat strange, because at maximum warp, the Enterprise D chases the Borg cube for 2 hours, forty minutes, three seconds. Just before they take it out of warp, they had seventeen minutes left, but lets add another ten minutes there, assuming the ship had maybe seven minutes left in her.

So, we get 2 hours and 33 minutes.



Then we get this from Hanson in part two:

HANSON [on monitor]: In less than twenty four hours, this armada's going to hit that Borg vessel with everything we can muster. Either they survive or we do. As for Picard. A great man has been lost. Your Captain. My friend. Commander Riker, I hereby promote you to the field commission of Captain. The Enterprise is your ship now. Congratulations. I wish the circumstances were different.

In other words, in less than a day's notification that Earth was going to be attacked, Earth was able to gather 39 starships to defend the capital. This clashes with Hanson's earlier quote, but it might not--Hanson might have been refering to other ships than the 39 starships, which could possibly have been a sort of home defense fleet between say Vulcan. These ships may have had standing orders not to go to Picard's help so as to defend the core of the Federation.

That or the Enterprise D is much, much faster than the rest of the fleet, which seems unlikely.

In other words, in roughly a day, JC is complaining that the UFP's force of 39 ships is proof of a small fleet. That's hardly the case. It's just the case of not enough ships being available to fight against the Borg; ie, being six days away, most likely spread out trying to find the Cube.

When you consider the fights starfleet had been in over the last few decades (very few really and mostly fought on the borders) having 39 actual full blown starships within 24 hours of earth/wolf 359 is reall quite a lot, and having the rest out on the borders ect it quite consistant with the political situation at that time.


I also always figured that the E-D being the flagship was the fastest or one of the fastest ships in starfleet and its was also going like a bat out of hell and streaching its engines past sustainable cruise speed, noy only that but the Armada would be limited to the top speed of the slowest ship in it.

Then factor in that they are organising a fleet not a piss up at the local where everybody can just stroll in at any time. Lets face it having single ships turn up one at a time for the cube to chew up would be rather stupid so it is also likely those 6 days or whatever would also include staging/meeting points so the groups could turn up enmasse.

Not really. The Defiant class was shelved when the Borg threat faded.

True, sisko says exactly that in "the search", as well as mentions a few flaws the O'brien fixes.

Yeah, because if the US Navy encountered a super ship capable of beating them in 39 to 1 odds without so much as breaking a sweat, I'd think they'd be pretty fucking terrified too.

Yup, in Q-Who the Flagship of the Federation (after putting on a initial good show of firepower) was adapted to and made ineffectual, now thats gonna be a butt clenching concept for any organisation.

Two problems with your theory honey.

1) There were no Runabout class ships visible in that armada.

2) Peregrines fighters aren't considered to be starships. You'd realize that if you'd actually listened to Kit's argument of the fact that they've never been given an NCC number or stated to have one...but why let anything like evidence stop you?

True and true.

It's also worth noting that the UFP was using older ships. Ie, ships like the Miranda. In fact, only Connies and older were really kicked out of active service.

Interestingly enough we see a destroyed Constitution class in the destroyed fleet at wolf 359.

Slam dunked saucer section in the foreground.



Engineering/secondary hull top left foreground.



It is unamed but it is 100% confirmed to be a connie (and not just any old connie model either, Because the behind the scenes sources indicate the model used for both shots was that of the self destructed Enterprise made for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. (Special Edition DVD text commentary) .


Anyway its nice to see facehugger and crew still waving the ban hammer around.

One of the most entertaining bits of that thread is how the warsies are trying to dismiss canon visuals from TCW now the pee all over saxtons work and SDN crap...

Originally Posted by DrStrangelove View Post
The thing about using TCW visuals at face value is the doublethink required
to pretend this:-


Is exactly the same as this:-

Mike DiCenso wrote:

Mith wrote:So it'd take the fleet approximately six days to reach the Borg. This is somewhat strange, because at maximum warp, the Enterprise D chases the Borg cube for 2 hours, forty minutes, three seconds. Just before they take it out of warp, they had seventeen minutes left, but lets add another ten minutes there, assuming the ship had maybe seven minutes left in her.

So, we get 2 hours and 33 minutes.

The opening of the Deep Space Nine pilot episode "Emissary", confirms that Picard was held captive for 6 six days:

On Stardate 43997, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise was kidnapped for six days by an invading force known as the Borg. Surgically altered, he was forced to lead an assault on Starfleet at Wolf 359.

Discounting the 24 hours until the battle, and adding back in the E-D's time spent hiding out in the Paulson Nebula, we still get about 6 days from the time that Admiral Hanson notes that help is 6 days away, although we do not know if that is 6 days away from where the E-D was at the time, or from any other possible location. So 40 starships within 6 days time, not including the E-D herself, which would make 41.

By the way, why are you posting an SB.com thread here?
-Mike

The original thread regarding it was closed down and starting a thread with that sort of title might have been considered flamebaiting (to a specific sum...) and I figure I'm already running on my luck in the 40k ship thread.

Oh crap! I totally forgot about the nebula! Ah well, that's still six days. Still an impressive showing.

You missed that the fleet, while originally to be made up of elements from the Second, Fifth and Ninth fleets, only elements of the Second and Fifth had time to arrive before being forced to depart early to stop the minefield from being brought down.

ROSS: Are you sure this is reliable?

SISKO: I've known the courier for five years. I trust him.

ROSS: Then we have a problem. According to this, the minefield's coming down in three days. The Ninth Fleet won't be here for at least four.

So we got 624 starships gathered based on elements from just two fleets, not three. Also, you need to remember that the Dominion late in the war had 30,000 starships. It seems odd that the combined alliance of Federation, Klingon, and Romulan forces could not match that, or nearly so, nor did it seem likely they could have pulled off the invasion of Cardassia as seen in "WYLB, without overwhelming numbers, and the Romulan represenative Velal in "Dogs of War" woukd not have been concerned about the loss of "thousands of ships" in making the attempt.
-Mike

Um...I said that. My point was that given that the other parts of the fleet were made up of 312 ships (per average), then so we should assume this one to be. For a total of roughly 936 starships.

And actually, the Alliance had much more than the Dominion at that point. Remember that the Romulans had turned the tide of the war, forcing the Dominion on the defensive. That was a major plot point in the First Battle of Chin'toka, that Dalmar had sent away most of the ships protecting the system to another front, relying on a few ships and numerous orbital defense platforms. As in, direct evidence that for once, the Dominion lines were strained.

As to this quote:

SISKO: But one didn't. A Bird of Prey called the Ki'tang.
ROSS: Why? What was different about the Ki'tang?
O'BRIEN: We're not really sure. The only thing we can figure is that just prior to the engagement, their Chief Engineer adjusted the tritium intermix to compensate for a containment problem in the warp core.
MARTOK: I've ordered every ship in the Klingon fleet to adjust its reactor the same way.
ROMULAN: Our vessels are of a different design. Can this technique be adapted to protect them as well?
SISKO: Unfortunately, no. Your ships are still vulnerable, and so are ours.
O'BRIEN: I've sent everything we know about the Breen weapon to the Romulan Ministry of Science and to Starfleet Engineering, but realistically, it's going take be a while before they can figure out a way to protect our ships.
SISKO: Thank you, Mister O'Brien.
(O'Brien leaves.)
ROSS: Well, gentlemen, it seems as if the Klingon fleet is the only thing that stands between us and the Dominion.
ROMULAN: What have we come to?
MARTOK: By tomorrow, we'll have fifteen hundred Klingon vessels ready for deployment.
ROMULAN: With the Breen, the Cardassians and the Jem'Hadar, you're still outnumbered twenty to one.
MARTOK: I am aware of that, General.
I can't believe that's all the Klingons have. That's less than 3% of their entire fleet. I could accept maybe an 75% loss and only 12,500 ships of their remaining--though the general is probably just refering to the available ships at that time.

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:When you consider the fights starfleet had been in over the last few decades (very few really and mostly fought on the borders) having 39 actual full blown starships within 24 hours of earth/wolf 359 is reall quite a lot, and having the rest out on the borders ect it quite consistant with the political situation at that time.

True, not to mention I don't understand how that's a pitiful showing according to JC. Typcially outnumbering an enemy five to one would ensure a win. Any sort of real typical invasion would have had its showings to the UFP long before an actual attack--at least that far deep into the heart of the Federation, via spynetwork and boarder patrols.

Then factor in that they are organising a fleet not a piss up at the local where everybody can just stroll in at any time. Lets face it having single ships turn up one at a time for the cube to chew up would be rather stupid so it is also likely those 6 days or whatever would also include staging/meeting points so the groups could turn up enmasse.

We should also remember that the Borg cube was traveling at high warp; ie, I do believe the Enterprise D was at maximum warp when they took her down to impulse. Most invading fleets wouldn't be able to sustain a massive speed like that.

True, sisko says exactly that in "the search", as well as mentions a few flaws the O'brien fixes.

It's pretty funny that Starfleet's response was to build a ship so powerful that it tore itself apart during testing. :p

Yup, in Q-Who the Flagship of the Federation (after putting on a initial good show of firepower) was adapted to and made ineffectual, now thats gonna be a butt clenching concept for any organisation.

Really, when you think about it in real navy terms, you have to realize just how buttclenching this is. Ie, they had no idea that a ship that would require at least seven years by their standards to reach them in one. Ie, it would be like the US Navy predicting that a powerful enemy ship will reach them in seven weeks and then it suddenly showing up in one.

In other words, Starfleet was caught with its pants down. There was absolutely nothing they could do about it.

Then, not only did it bitch slap a fleet that would have assraped any ship dumb enough to approach them by their standards, it then pretty much shrugged off all of Sol's defenses (most of which we don't see...). Ie, that'd be like a ship not only smashing our own fleet in forty to one odds, but then laughing off all our missiles, guns, and such at a nearby military base.

Oh--and according to someone who would know, their next attack will very possibly include ten of these.

Interestingly enough we see a destroyed Constitution class in the destroyed fleet at wolf 359.

Slam dunked saucer section in the foreground.

Engineering/secondary hull top left foreground.

It is unamed but it is 100% confirmed to be a connie (and not just any old connie model either, Because the behind the scenes sources indicate the model used for both shots was that of the self destructed Enterprise made for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. (Special Edition DVD text commentary) .

Damn, I'd sure hate to be the poor bastards who had to fly that ship up against the Borg cube...that said, now that I recall, there was another Connie in an earlier episode of TNG. I guess they weren't all shelved. Ah well. In any case, it only suggests more ships. But I think 50,000 ships is a good benchmark. The only difficult part in determining fleet sizes is that of the Romulans. We know that they were using cloaking methods to make their numbers harder to ground. That and their massive ships suggest to me that their fleet numbers may have been smaller than the rest of the powers.

You could argue that the total mass of their ships isn't really all that different, but it sort of makes sense to me. Ie, their ships before trading some for cloaking were small dinky BoPs, so them having a smaller industry works in my opinion. Taking this, we could assume that they've got a fleet of say, roughly 30,000 ships. Ie, assuming only a 25% loss in ships, that'd give them a fleet of roughly 22,500 ships at the end of the war. Heavy loss, but well worth their effort.

In fact, this really makes sense visa vi Sloan's comment of how the Klingons would spend about a decade rebuilding their entire fleet. For high end, we could assume that literally only 1,500 ships are left in the Klingon fleet. That would mean to rebuild within a decade, the Klingons would need to build 4,850 ships per year to get back up to full strength. I take this figure a little high myself, and I suggest that Sloan was making an estimation, based on say 20% of the Klingon armada left in tact--or 10,000 ships. Going with this value, the Klingons would basically be required to build roughly 4,000 ships per year. That may be easier for them though, since most of their ships are smaller.

Then it depends if we look at the Federation fleet. Ie, I can't believe that the fleet was up at 30,000 at the end of the war--otherwise the Klingons and the UFP would have defeated the Dominion (remember, sans the Breen, they'd only have roughly 20,000 at that time, assuming the Breen held a third of those numbers.). While we can assume that the Dominion had more ships, probably around 40,000...I find it hard to believe that the UFP could match that. I would however, suggest that at that time, the Klingons had maybe 15,000 ships and the UFP had 23,000 ships, for a total of 35,000. Ie, a fairly close match, with the Dominion only having a few hundred more ships.

Hence the need for the Romulans, With say, even 30,000 ships they'd easily boost Allied numbers to 65,000 ships, putting them at a significant advantage against the Dominion. I think this is where we saw the Allies overpowering the Dominion, whose only means of not being totally overrunned were their ability to replace ships (as commented by Martok) as well as their defenses. That said, at the end of the war, the fleets probably looked like this:

Klingons: ~8,000/50,000 (84% losses)
UFP: ~20,000/50,000 (60% losses)
Romulans: ~22,500/30,000 (25% losses)

This would match Sloan's suggestion that the Romulans and the UFP would be struggling for dominance during that time. Assuming the UFP's ship building capacity was just as great as the Klingons, while it would take them sven and a half years to rebuild their fleet, they hadn't suffered nearly as much losses, meaning that even despite the low losses on the Romulan side, the UFP was still large enough and powerful enough of an industrial power to keep up with the Romulans. Ie, if we assume the Romulans have half the building capacity that the UFP and Klingons due, to recover it would take 3.75 years to restore 7,500 lost ships. In that same time, the UFP will have restored 15,000 ships--ie, they'd over take the Romulan fleet within a couple years. By the time the Romulan fleet is up to full strength, the UFP will have 35,000 ships compared to their 30,000, with the Klingons at 23,000.

It suggests that the Klingon Empire would leave a bit of a power vacuum, forcing the UFP to contend with the Romulans for around half a decade while the Klingons slowly try to restore themselves. That's probably the sort of figures Sloan and S31 were looking at--even more so when you add in Ross's point that the Romulans might pull out of the war--which means that the UFP and the Klingons and the UFP would have taken more losses. Driving them probably to a region closer to eighty percent and the Klingons probably to nintey percent--possibly higher. Hell, there may not have even have been any ships left afterwards, knowing the Klingons.

And the Romulans, lording on high, could be up to as high as 25,000 - 28,000 ships.

This is all conjecture, but it does seem to match the suggestions via Ross, Sloan, and the numbers we get towards the end of the series.

Mith wrote:I can't believe that's all the Klingons have. That's less than 3% of their entire fleet. I could accept maybe an 75% loss and only 12,500 ships of their remaining--though the general is probably just refering to the available ships at that time.

The 1,500 ships ready in a day is just that. The number of ships they'd make available in that time. Nowhere does Martok state that is the entirety of the Klingon forces. By the way, Mith. Pick a different color, using dark purple to outline quotes with does not show up very well against a black background.

Mith wrote:Ie, that'd be like a ship not only smashing our own fleet in forty to one odds, but then laughing off all our missiles, guns, and such at a nearby military base.

What most people keep forgetting with the Battle of Wolf 359 that is important is that we don't really know how the battle would have gone had Captain Picard not been assimilated. The closest idea we can get is the second Battle of Sector 001, with ships actually managing to heavily damage the outer hull. Of course there the Federation had amassed a far larger fleet, and the battle raged for hours, perhaps days all the way from the Typhon sector to Earth.

That brings up another point about Federation fleet size; the Federation not only lost the 39 ships at the first battle, but who knows how many dozens, if not hundreds in the second, plus it fought the Klingons in various skrimished, and fought the Dominion for months before Operation Return was carried out to retake Deep Space Nine.
-Mike

Mith wrote: I recall, there was another Connie in an earlier episode of TNG.

That was Captain Picard's desktop model. The same or a similar one appears in the episode "Booby Trap" also as a desktop model in Drafting Room 5 of the Utopia Planitia Shipyards. The warp nacelles were placed at an odd angle, along with some other off-kilter detail changes.

Originally the model was supposed to represent Picard's old starship, the Stargazer, but when the decision was made to build a brand new design was made available for the episode "The Battle" , the ship was retconned into what we see today, which is why that Connie model disappeared not long after and was replaced by the Stargazer/Constellation model.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:The 1,500 ships ready in a day is just that. The number of ships they'd make available in that time. Nowhere does Martok state that is the entirety of the Klingon forces. By the way, Mith. Pick a different color, using dark purple to outline quotes with does not show up very well against a black background.

Yes, but my issue was to either take the general's statement of twenty to one at the face value or at the entirety of the Klingon Defense Fleet. I went with the smaller number because the larger one is just off the scale...

What most people keep forgetting with the Battle of Wolf 359 that is important is that we don't really know how the battle would have gone had Captain Picard not been assimilated. The closest idea we can get is the second Battle of Sector 001, with ships actually managing to heavily damage the outer hull. Of course there the Federation had amassed a far larger fleet, and the battle raged for hours, perhaps days all the way from the Typhon sector to Earth.

Actually, we do. There was that episode when Worf was jumping between parallel times, remember? He met a Riker where they failed to defeat the Borg--crazy Riker had screamed that Earth had fallen and the Borg were "everywhere", suggesting that things didn't go well afterwards.

Oddly enough, as much as JC likes to flaunt the massive, massive damage that apparently 40 ships had, she doesn't take into account that that's all the UFP could get there in 6 days. As in, every ship within six days travel of Earth was forty.

Going with no doubt the same assumptions she uses for such idiotic claims, I can point out that because ships are limited to 2.74 LY a day, that this means that the UFP must have massive ship densities per light year. Assuming that the UFP is a rough sphere, we get an area of 50,240,000 LY. The area of all the ships who could have reached Earth is 158.73 light years. Assuming the ship densities near the UFP is the norm, we get 12,660,492 ships for the Federation fleet, plus any ships that would be out adventuring, so we could easily extend that to say, thirteen million. However, one might point out that the density near the heart of the UFP is far greater than anywhere else.

Okay, fine. We'll say that it's ten times greater. That's still 1,266,049.2 ships. or 1.3 million ships. Fuck, even if you went to the extreme and screamed it's a hundred times greater (horribly, horribly unlikely), we still get 126,604.92 ships. Over a hundred thousand ships. But that's taking it to the extreme. 1.3 million ships is easily obtainable.

And all I have to do to justify that this is the case is say that since the UFP is so vast compared to FTL, the Dominion doesn't need even a quarter of that to engage the UFP. Ie, that the entire war was just for a small section of the Federation. After wall, Earth was what, a week's travel? A month? Let's say two months. That would place Earth no farther than 164.4 light years away. Assuming a rough rectangle of space, with the long side being 164.4, we get a total of 135,136.8 ships. Same with the Romulans and the Klingons; only a marginal amount of ships would be used compared to their much more massive territories. We're probably looking at around 200,000 ships for both powers total. However, we do have to keep in mind that the UFP was preparing for war for about a year before it occured, allowing for hundreds of thousands of more ships to join in the battle. In fact, this speaks great volumes as to the massive ship production of the Dominion when you consider they, as a fractional force (abliet with the assistance of the Cardassians) could match a constant inflow of tens of thousands of ships per month, not to mention what the local ship yards would churn out, were able to keep up with the UFP and the Klingons.

Any indication of hundreds of ships lost being a heavy blow or thousands isn't an indication of low numbers--just that key areas were won and that the rest of the fleet is too bogged down to respond. It's called scale. In fact, considering that the UFP and the Klingons--hell, everyone during the war, specifically mentioned the Alpha Quadrant being at stake, we could take it that they only mean the Alpha Quadrant. After all, both powers have a significant degree of power in both quadrants. And even if the Dominion steamrolled the UFP, it still limits their speed. Ie, it'd take eight years of constant steamrolling to take the entirety of the UFP. However, we can probably take into account that with the loss of Earth, Vulcan, Betazaid, the Andorian homeworld, and so forth, that the UFP would be leaderless and would fracture into different segments, allowing the Dominion to divide and conquer.

See, this is the backdraw of forcing your debating opponents to be limited to a certain FTL speed and never backing off on evidence providing proof that the UFP can move faster in navigated territories; it utterly, utterly comes back to bite you in your sorry ass. Because when a society is incapable of making quick enough responses to reach an area of their territory, you need to compensate by having more ships. By pointing out the ship densities and then even assuming it's ten times greater than the rest of the UFP, take into account the limited FTL, and the size of the UFP--and you suddenly get very large, very inflated numbers.

They don't like it? Tough, proven via basic math, proven FTL limitations, proven ship densities, "conservative math", and if anyone points to the registries, I'll just double back and point out that the registries are "occasionally inconsistant" and for all we know *wink*, the registries refer to different sectors of the fleet and all we saw were the NCCs. I could even point to the Relativity and claim that is NCG registry is proof of that. Of course, anyone who disagrees with me obviously just wants to eat their cake and have it too.

However, being honest, we know that the registries match with the fleet, we know that there are sort of super highways that the ships can take to cross the vast distances, we know that 'Alpha Quadrant' was hyperberle, we know that it was the number and the territory losses that hurt the UFP, and so forth. We know all of that--just because I can reason it away by taking a different interpretation that Wong and his cronies take to get better numbers doesn't mean I'm a great debator. It means I intentionally shifted a few interpretations to get the higher results.

That brings up another point about Federation fleet size; the Federation not only lost the 39 ships at the first battle, but who knows how many dozens, if not hundreds in the second, plus it fought the Klingons in various skrimished, and fought the Dominion for months before Operation Return was carried out to retake Deep Space Nine.

Exactly. And I think my suggested numbers (the serious ones, not the silly ones) take that into account.


EDIT: Should I be the only one frightened by the fact that my silly numbers can actually make sense if you accept the thousand light years per year as 100% solid?

Mith wrote:Actually, we do. There was that episode when Worf was jumping between parallel times, remember? He met a Riker where they failed to defeat the Borg--crazy Riker had screamed that Earth had fallen and the Borg were "everywhere", suggesting that things didn't go well afterwards.

RIKER [on viewscreen]: We won't go back. You don't know what it's like in our universe. The Federation's gone, the Borg is everywhere! We're one of the last ships left. Please, you've got to help us!


There is no information on what happened to Picard in that universe, or their version of the Battle of Wolf 359.
-Mike

Damn, I'd sure hate to be the poor bastards who had to fly that ship up against the Borg cube...that said, now that I recall, there was another Connie in an earlier episode of TNG. I guess they weren't all shelved.

A hull is essentially just a shell you put things in and i see no reason why a connie could not be packed full of TNG level tech and used for less imprtant missions when starfleet obviously do the same with the miranda class and others.

Who would fly a upgraded miranda when you could be sitting on a connie bridge after it had been TNG uber refited?....:).

The only real argument i can think of that they would scrap hulls is if they use "standardised parts" like the size of the warp drives, warp coils for the nacelles ect that cannot not be fitted into the ships. Or that the power from them and or the speeds/manouvers they allow could "tear the ship apart" as was mentioned with the defiant.

The six days delay was the time given by Hanson about what would be necessary to join the E-D at Lalo, right?
The second speech from Hanson, when does it take place, relative to the former speech to Picard?

The E-D was still in orbit about Jouret Four when they recieved word about the USS Lalo:

HANSON [on monitor]:At nineteen hundred hours yesterday, the USS Lalo departed Zeta Alpha Two on a freight run to Sentinel Minor Four. At twenty two hundred hours and twelve minutes, a distress signal was received at Starbase one five seven. The Lalo reported contact with an alien vessel described as cube shaped. The distress signal ended abruptly, and she's not been heard from since.

PICARD: Mister Data, how long would it take to get there at warp nine?

DATA: One hour, seventeen minutes, sir.

PICARD: Make it so.

HANSON [on monitor]: We're coming with every available starship to assist, Captain, but the closest help is six days away.

PICARD: We'll try and keep them occupied until you arrive.


So yes, I would say that you are correct in that assessment. The next communication is not until well after the hide out in the Paulson Nebula, and the kidnapping of Captain Picard and just 22 minutes before the deflector weapon is fired. That implies that at least a couple days time went by.
-Mike