The Culture versus the UFP & Allies

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Who wins, then?

Federation
4
24%
Culture
13
76%
 
Total votes: 17

Narsil
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Post by Narsil » Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:50 am

GStone wrote:You remember that I started calling it that as a play on the name of Culture's gridfire, right? An 'opening' appears (the subspace field that's temporally phasing the gravitational explosives), which allows the energy to pass through (the same method used to temporally unphase Data's communications in Time's Arrow).
Which makes absolutely no difference as the Culture ships often like to keep themselves protected on the inside by force-fields that could very much allow them to safely contain a black hole without any living beings on board ever noticing it. They move around stars for fun, they destroy planets by braking too hard (not flying away from a planet, but using the braking mechanism in its general direction) and they fight their battles over just under a hundred thousandth of a second.
By keeping it outside the field.
Well, since their force fields are by their very nature gravitic, and they use them to provide artificial gravity within the ship as well as keep some of the less structurally sound 'art' ships together, it's just a case of detecting the amount of Gs and then countering with the forcefields.

It's not rocket science, just simple logical deduction of what a Culture ship can do and what they have done before.

I'd also like to point out that there are over 90,000 Culture drone warships to destroy and each one of those can be instantly replaced, and destroying a typical GSV is damn-near impossible with the gravity-based weapons of the Federation. You're also assuming the Federation would think to use gravity-based weapons, which is a grave overestimation of whatever their knowledge is of the Culture, which basically stems down to 'something we can't quite perceive which just destroyed everything'.

To realise that the Culture uses trap-door technology, they'd have to first engage in direct combat with the Culture, and they won't even get in range before being annihilated.
So, every one of those with 'fighting spirits' are gonna be the ones that die, leaving all the weak kneed sniffling children? Right, and things fall up.
I think you overestimate the general bravery of humanity. If you destroy an entire country, or nation, remembering to target as soon as possible all the highest and most powerful levels of technology and biggest resource bases. You've won. Especially if you're the Culture, because if you're the Culture, you're clever enough to realise such things.

GStone
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Post by GStone » Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:43 pm

Narsil wrote:Which makes absolutely no difference as the Culture ships often like to keep themselves protected on the inside by force-fields that could very much allow them to safely contain a black hole without any living beings on board ever noticing it.
And Culture force fields and the generators of them don't occupy the same volume of space.
and destroying a typical GSV is damn-near impossible with the gravity-based weapons of the Federation.
All one needs is patience.
You're also assuming the Federation would think to use gravity-based weapons, which is a grave overestimation of whatever their knowledge is of the Culture, which basically stems down to 'something we can't quite perceive which just destroyed everything.'

To realise that the Culture uses trap-door technology, they'd have to first engage in direct combat with the Culture, and they won't even get in range before being annihilated.
No, I'm not. You are assuming that they will only think to fight with phasers and torpedos only.
I think you overestimate the general bravery of humanity. If you destroy an entire country, or nation, remembering to target as soon as possible all the highest and most powerful levels of technology and biggest resource bases. You've won. Especially if you're the Culture, because if you're the Culture, you're clever enough to realise such things.
Oh, bull$hit. You said they'd lose on pure morale.

Narsil
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Post by Narsil » Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:06 pm

GStone wrote:And Culture force fields and the generators of them don't occupy the same volume of space.
Erm, irrelevant. The Culture force fields are enough to contain black holes, and they can be projected inside a ship.
All one needs is patience.
Give a smart yet lonely GSV long enough, and they'll build an LSV or an MSV or something for company. Which can always build other GSVs and LSVs and MSVs... the Culture has quite the population base.
No, I'm not. You are assuming that they will only think to fight with phasers and torpedos only.
They won't be able to fight because they won't see any weaknesses because the Culture operates from distances that are almost out of the typical 'detailed Federation sensor range'.
Oh, bull$hit. You said they'd lose on pure morale.
What I said there was the reason why they'd lose on pure morale. If you destroy everything, while being effectively invisible, you've already scared your opponent into submission.

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Post by GStone » Thu Oct 25, 2007 12:39 am

Narsil wrote:Erm, irrelevant. The Culture force fields are enough to contain black holes, and they can be projected inside a ship.
Without the generators, the force fields are gone. Otherwise, there'd be no need to have the generators in the first place. The same goes for any other type of generator.
Give a smart yet lonely GSV long enough, and they'll build an LSV or an MSV or something for company. Which can always build other GSVs and LSVs and MSVs... the Culture has quite the population base.
This is why a crapload of the gravitational gridfire bombs are built beforehand. Also, see above. Targeting the source of the building capabilities of the ships would be a high priority target after a while.
They won't be able to fight because they won't see any weaknesses because the Culture operates from distances that are almost out of the typical 'detailed Federation sensor range'.
And you keep acting like phasers and torps are not only what they only fight with, but would be the only thing they would use unless they had sensor readings to alter tactics. As if they're programmed to think of those 2 first. There are many weapons in the Federation.
What I said there was the reason why they'd lose on pure morale.
That's not pure morale loosing. Pure moral loosing is when one side is so demoralized that they give up. Loosing almost all territory doesn't automatically mean they lose morally. For a degredation in morality, they must go from a fighting spirit to a surrendering one. And not everyone is gonna do that just because a large segment of territory is gone. Guinan's people had that happen to them by the borg, but they survived.
If you destroy everything, while being effectively invisible, you've already scared your opponent into submission.
More bull$hit.

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Post by Narsil » Thu Oct 25, 2007 12:50 pm

GStone wrote:Without the generators, the force fields are gone. Otherwise, there'd be no need to have the generators in the first place. The same goes for any other type of generator.
But the generators activate within microseconds, and the gravity-based weapons won't have a chance to stop them. It's just the way things are in the Culture; you don't fight like the Federation does, half of the time you don't fight at all.
This is why a crapload of the gravitational gridfire bombs are built beforehand. Also, see above. Targeting the source of the building capabilities of the ships would be a high priority target after a while.
But not if they're contained by forcefields within microseconds.
And you keep acting like phasers and torps are not only what they only fight with, but would be the only thing they would use unless they had sensor readings to alter tactics. As if they're programmed to think of those 2 first. There are many weapons in the Federation.
And you keep ignoring everything I say. You are the one mentioning photon torpedoes and phasers; I am mentioning the half-dozen or so lightyears of distance between the Federation ship and the effectively phase-cloaked Culture ship. The Culture has enough power, distance and speed over the Federation so that the fight is like high-tech snipers versus a tribal village.
That's not pure morale loosing. Pure moral loosing is when one side is so demoralized that they give up. Loosing almost all territory doesn't automatically mean they lose morally. For a degredation in morality, they must go from a fighting spirit to a surrendering one. And not everyone is gonna do that just because a large segment of territory is gone. Guinan's people had that happen to them by the borg, but they survived.
They also chose to run far, far away from an opponent that is very, very minor compared to the Culture, not fight back. That is what we call a military loss. If you think loss is 'everyone dies and no survivors' then you are obviously an idiot. Of course, arguing that the Federation has any capacity to win against the Culture has already proven that you're an idiot, and I don't need to make that known.

It's not like fighting the Empire. The Federation will have lost the fight due to being in nothing resembling a position to fight any more. This isn't going to be a regular war. It's closer to pest control.
More bull$hit.
The Culture typically expects planets and stars to be on its list of 'losses' when it goes into war with something equal to itself. The Federation is way out of its league. You are the one full of... *ahem*... 'bull$hit'.

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Mr. Oragahn
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Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:24 pm

I don't really get how this poll manages to be a draw.

Okay, I admit, I've voted for the Federation just for the fun of such an absurd claim.

But it's just in line with a topic that doesn't make sense. It's unbalanced from the get go.

The whole Culture against the Federation?... I'm not even sure the Federation could deal with a ridiculously small portion of the Culture to boot.

Narsil
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Post by Narsil » Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:38 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:I don't really get how this poll manages to be a draw.
GStone can apparently master-debate a convincing argument.
Okay, I admit, I've voted for the Federation just for the fun of such an absurd claim.
I was tempted to, I'll admit. But I've got a rather odd mind and I just couldn't reconcile the Federation defeating the Culture.
But it's just in line with a topic that doesn't make sense. It's unbalanced from the get go.

The whole Culture against the Federation?... I'm not even sure the Federation could deal with a ridiculously small portion of the Culture to boot.
The Culture in this scenario isn't the whole Culture. It's closer to about 90,000 ROUs and a GSV that might be able to militarise itself. The Culture itself lost millions of in a war, and didn't get hurt too much in the long run of things. It already is a ridiculously small portion, it just happens to be quite a bit larger than the Federation.

A single ROU would do a shitload of damage to the Federation, and it very likely wouldn't ever be taken down if it was smart about things. And they usually are; Culture AIs make humans look like lemmings.

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Post by GStone » Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:49 pm

Narsil wrote:But the generators activate within microseconds, and the gravity-based weapons won't have a chance to stop them.
The energy doesn't have to unphase outside the generators. It can unphase not only within the generator itself, but within the parts of the generator.
And you keep ignoring everything I say.
I keep countering what you say.
You are the one mentioning photon torpedoes and phasers; I am mentioning the half-dozen or so lightyears of distance between the Federation ship and the effectively phase-cloaked Culture ship.
You said that they wouldn't think to fight with gravity based weapons unless they had sensor readings. The implication is that they're just gonna start firing photons and phasers.
They also chose to run far, far away from an opponent that is very, very minor compared to the Culture, not fight back.
But, they didn't just give up and die or head to the nearest cube with their hands up and bent over a barrel either.
That is what we call a military loss. If you think loss is 'everyone dies and no survivors' then you are obviously an idiot.
Given that I have never implied or outright said that, you show that you can't keep what I'm saying straight.
Of course, arguing that the Federation has any capacity to win against the Culture has already proven that you're an idiot, and I don't need to make that known.
And if that were true, you really wouldn't be bringing this scenario up every so often to see if I've come around to your side.
The Culture typically expects planets and stars to be on its list of 'losses' when it goes into war with something equal to itself. The Federation is way out of its league. You are the one full of... *ahem*... 'bull$hit'.
Let's recap quickly:

You ignore that there is a volume that the generators ad their parts take up; you confuse surrendering with survival via escaping; you've ignored your own implication of needing sensor readings before switching from phasers and photons; you've ignored what I've written and accused me of saying something else and you've resorted to name calling.
Narsil wrote:GStone can apparently master-debate a convincing argument.
Don't blame me for doing something you couldn't do.

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Post by Narsil » Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:04 pm

GStone wrote:The energy doesn't have to unphase outside the generators. It can unphase not only within the generator itself, but within the parts of the generator.
Proof that they'll know where it is. Please. It's in a different place on every single Culture ship due to the way they operate. And they usually have more than one forcefield generator onhand due to their general strategy of redundancy until redundancy itself is redundant.
I keep countering what you say.
No, you ignore it, take it out of context, and produce a series of nonsensical answers that just make me think 'What the hell is this bloke smoking?!'
You said that they wouldn't think to fight with gravity based weapons unless they had sensor readings. The implication is that they're just gonna start firing photons and phasers.
Well, they can't. They're not in range to. They'll never be in range to. Nor will they ever have the chance to activate phase cloaking forever due to the fact that it can wear off, and that's when one of the 90,000 ships will just jump on them and fill them up with a group of CAM missiles.
But, they didn't just give up and die or head to the nearest cube with their hands up and bent over a barrel either.
No, they ran away. They left, went somewhere else. That does quite technically fulfill 'destruction of the Federation' because there wouldn't be a Federation anymore.
Given that I have never implied or outright said that, you show that you can't keep what I'm saying straight.
You can't keep what you're saying straight; it's a chore just making sense of the constant rubbish that comes out of your mouth. You're like Babelfish translated from English to Japanese, then to Chinese and back to English again sometimes.
And if that were true, you really wouldn't be bringing this scenario up every so often to see if I've come around to your side.
I bring it up to see if you've got an inch of sense in that thick skull of yours, mate. There seems to be just empty space, and that's about it. I wonder, does knocking on your skull cause it to echo?
Let's recap quickly:

You ignore that there is a volume that the generators ad their parts take up;
Yeah. Several places on the ship. We've established that. The Federation can't fire a second torpedo fast enough.
you confuse surrendering with survival via escaping;
That's the same thing. Running with your tail between your legs indicates a surrender in my language. I don't know about yours.
you've ignored your own implication of needing sensor readings before switching from phasers and photons;
Er, no, that's you. You're just taking me out of context all the time and ignoring every point I make while also putting words in my mouth.
you've ignored what I've written and accused me of saying something else and you've resorted to name calling.
I call it as I see it, mate. Don't debate with me if you don't like brutal honesty. It's a warning I should give out more frequently, I think.
Don't blame me for doing something you couldn't do.
I couldn't w4nk an unrealistic scenario to high-heaven? God, I must suck compared to your mastery of hand-fu.

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Post by GStone » Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:36 am

Narsil wrote:Proof that they'll know where it is. Please. It's in a different place on every single Culture ship due to the way they operate. And they usually have more than one forcefield generator onhand due to their general strategy of redundancy until redundancy itself is redundant.
It isn't needed to be known before the gravitational gridfire starts going off.
No, you ignore it, take it out of context, and produce a series of nonsensical answers that just make me think 'What the hell is this bloke smoking?!'
I have gone point by point. What's nonsensical to you is why I keep not wanting to take your position when I've yet to see reasoning why mine is not good. You keep saying to the effect 'they're faster and can hit from longer ranges; submit!!!'.
Well, they can't. They're not in range to. They'll never be in range to.
Given that it is unknown just how much a range such a weapon would have, that's premature. And since you put the Culture ships in the middle of Fed territory, it's very premature of you.
Nor will they ever have the chance to activate phase cloaking forever due to the fact that it can wear off, and that's when one of the 90,000 ships will just jump on them and fill them up with a group of CAM missiles.
Sure, if they run out of energy...oh wait. Data left the perimeter of the subspace field devices and staid temporally phased. It's only when he went through the temporal portal and went to the past that he unphased, which was standard operating procudre for the aliens and the portal. The script says there's a portable box with a handle, but the ep showed the generators on stands on the ground. And even so, the generator would be on the ship anyway. Oh drat.

Oh, wait. 'What about fuel' you say. Well, they obviously aren't using massive amount of fuel for replicator usage. THere's lot of molecules and subatomic particle floating around. And subspace field don't need that much power either. Seska used a subspace force field generator that was carried on her body in State of Flux. Worf, Bev and Picard had those field devices that were easily carried in a single hand in Chain of Command. Picard, Troi, Geordie and Data used a make shift subspace force field from emergency transporter armband devices in Timescape.

Oh crap.
No, they ran away. They left, went somewhere else. That does quite technically fulfill 'destruction of the Federation' because there wouldn't be a Federation anymore.
Again...for everyone playing the home version..that doesn't mean they lost morally. It doesn't mean they just rolled over and surrendered.
You can't keep what you're saying straight; it's a chore just making sense of the constant rubbish that comes out of your mouth. You're like Babelfish translated from English to Japanese, then to Chinese and back to English again sometimes.
Given that I'm truly the one that is capable of not screwing things up and ignoring what the opposing side is saying, I'm MO.
I bring it up to see if you've got an inch of sense in that thick skull of yours, mate. There seems to be just empty space, and that's about it. I wonder, does knocking on your skull cause it to echo?
And you continue to demonstrate that you're incapable of participating in this debate without resorting to name calling and other childish remarks. MO.
Yeah. Several places on the ship. We've established that. The Federation can't fire a second torpedo fast enough.
And when the opposing side can't physically touch you, you don't have to worry about 'firing fast enough to beat the speed of their defenses' because you have the capacity to move past their defenses effortlessly.
That's the same thing. Running with your tail between your legs indicates a surrender in my language. I don't know about yours.
Mine is logic and discrimination of definitions. Crack open a dictionary every so often. MO.
Er, no, that's you. You're just taking me out of context all the time and ignoring every point I make while also putting words in my mouth.
You mean the words 'they're super fast; too fast for your side to be firing anything other than blowing their nose and they won't even get that far because they'll never see it coming'?

You said they wouldn't think to use graivty based weapons unless they had sensor readings. And here's one quote:

"They won't be able to fight because they won't see any weaknesses because the Culture operates from distances that are almost out of the typical 'detailed Federation sensor range'."

MO.
I call it as I see it, mate. Don't debate with me if you don't like brutal honesty. It's a warning I should give out more frequently, I think.
I've gotten more brutal honesty from a smelly shoe. MO.
I couldn't w4nk an unrealistic scenario to high-heaven? God, I must suck compared to your mastery of hand-fu.
Even before you understood a decent amount of the capabilities and tactics of the Culture, you were bending over for them. As demonstrated on the last board, I went page after page for detailed searching of specifics for what went on with them, some of which I posted in this thread. MO.

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Post by Narsil » Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:49 am

GStone wrote:It isn't needed to be known before the gravitational gridfire starts going off.
Oh, for fuck's sake. I've already told you why it won't work; your device does not instantly occupy every space on a ship at once. It's limited by light-speed. There's a reason the Culture never uses gridfire in local combat, and that's because it's useless.

Because nothing in the Culture is limited by light-speed. And I'd like you to prove that the gravitational gridfire can affect a ship in hyperspace.
I have gone point by point. What's nonsensical to you is why I keep not wanting to take your position when I've yet to see reasoning why mine is not good. You keep saying to the effect 'they're faster and can hit from longer ranges; submit!!!'.
They're infinitely faster, can hit from longer ranges, react within less than a microsecond to combat, has weapons that can destroy a planet within a split second, has several thousand years of combat experience and is a lot smarter than the Federation due to how fast and cleverly they think.

You have got no point.
Given that it is unknown just how much a range such a weapon would have, that's premature.
Typically as long as a photon torpedo. It's mounted on a typical Federation ship isn't it? And the Federation isn't going to instantly resort to using these weapons, like I said, and it won't have time. It will resort to the use of photons and phasers because that's what they always do (prove otherwise, please), and they shall never get in range to do otherwise.
And since you put the Culture ships in the middle of Fed territory, it's very premature of you.
Actually, they begin in hyperspace and the Federation cannot identify objects that are in hyperspace as it effectively phase-cloaks a ship. Of course, you ignore that every time it's useful for your side; because the Idirans also had the advantage of hyperspace, and that's how they could match Culture ships at all.
Sure, if they run out of energy...oh wait. Data left the perimeter of the subspace field devices and staid temporally phased. It's only when he went through the temporal portal and went to the past that he unphased, which was standard operating procudre for the aliens and the portal. The script says there's a portable box with a handle, but the ep showed the generators on stands on the ground. And even so, the generator would be on the ship anyway. Oh drat.
And wouldn't the weapons themselves remain temporally phased? It's hard to hurt someone with a weapon that doesn't quite occupy the same space-time continuum as they do.
Oh, wait. 'What about fuel' you say. Well, they obviously aren't using massive amount of fuel for replicator usage. THere's lot of molecules and subatomic particle floating around. And subspace field don't need that much power either. Seska used a subspace force field generator that was carried on her body in State of Flux. Worf, Bev and Picard had those field devices that were easily carried in a single hand in Chain of Command. Picard, Troi, Geordie and Data used a make shift subspace force field from emergency transporter armband devices in Timescape.
They cannot replicate deuterium (VOY: Demon), moving on.
Again...for everyone playing the home version..that doesn't mean they lost morally. It doesn't mean they just rolled over and surrendered.
Running away to go somewhere else and avoid the Culture at all costs does technically count as an undeclared surrender. And that's what they shall do.
Given that I'm truly the one that is capable of not screwing things up and ignoring what the opposing side is saying, I'm MO.
You do this a lot; completely dismiss my point as nonsense when you do not correctly answer it. You haven't provided proof that the Federation will have time to do their crackpot scheme, or even know that it will or will not work.
And you continue to demonstrate that you're incapable of participating in this debate without resorting to name calling and other childish remarks. MO.
And you're the one who constantly goes 'Federation can't lose! Waah! Waah! Waah!' and masturbates to the concept of a Federation vessel being able to one-shot a ship from a society that only really considers a white hole as being 'a natural obstacle'.
And when the opposing side can't physically touch you, you don't have to worry about 'firing fast enough to beat the speed of their defenses' because you have the capacity to move past their defenses effortlessly.
Wait, I remember that Temporal Phasing doesn't defend one from gravity-based weapons, does it? I mean, Data, Ro Laren and Geordi were all subject to gravity; and oddly enough had enough traction with the floor of the Enterprise, showing that something like the structural integrity field could affect them. Oh, and they could actually see!

So, lineguns, fields, and electromagnetic effectors anyone?
Mine is logic and discrimination of definitions. Crack open a dictionary every so often. MO.
I'm doing a fucking BA in English Literature you arrogant prick. You should not get into a semantics argument with someone who's more qualified than you are. It just isn't done.
You mean the words 'they're super fast; too fast for your side to be firing anything other than blowing their nose and they won't even get that far because they'll never see it coming'?
No, I did say that. You put phasers and photons in my mouth. Although really, it isn't a bad idea in itself, as I've indicated above. And naturally you do have to prove that your side is fast enough to do more than blow their nose because a microsecond is a very, very short amount of time in general.
You said they wouldn't think to use graivty based weapons unless they had sensor readings. And here's one quote:

"They won't be able to fight because they won't see any weaknesses because the Culture operates from distances that are almost out of the typical 'detailed Federation sensor range'."

MO.
Yes, now prove me wrong. You haven't done that. In fact, you haven't done a lot of things.
I've gotten more brutal honesty from a smelly shoe. MO.
You're
Even before you understood a decent amount of the capabilities and tactics of the Culture, you were bending over for them. As demonstrated on the last board, I went page after page for detailed searching of specifics for what went on with them, some of which I posted in this thread. MO.
And you still ignore what the Culture is actually capable of, its great intelligence and then you expect it to bend over once your 'gravitic gridfire' gets tossed about. When they didn't bend over for a foe that had 'planetary destruction' and 'detonating stars' (they lost six of those, at least) as part of its modus operandi. Instead they won that little war once they got their military in gear.

How utterly silly of you.

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Post by Roondar » Fri Oct 26, 2007 3:46 pm

First off: Hi to all. I'm new here :)

Second: I actually joined these boards over this absolutely silly thread. Sorry to call it that, but it's just so wrong there is still debate over this issue.

Edit: Third... Sorry this is insanely long. But I just had to say it all :)

See, the Culture would win. Not because there are scenario's that might possibly give the Federation some edge, but simply because of a key factor: time. See, every single thing I've read on these boards and everywhere else puts the Culture at a) very high levels of power and b) very, very, very speedy in it's combat and flightspeeds.

Now, suppose that GStone's weapon actually would work. Just for the sake of argument suppose his idea is 100% spot on and a Culture killer. The Federation would still be lost. Simply because of this:

Despite all the -sorry to use the term- McGuyverisms of the Startrek shows, Starfleet has never shown the ability to create entirely new weapons in under a day or so. Defenses against the Borg took them literally months, if not years to build and they knew what they where fighting in the Borg and also knew what would have to be different for them to have a chance. And even so, they still couldn't get it quite right even in the years that passed between the first Borg contact and the events in First Contact (where they won by Picards chance knowledge, they where busy losing till he showed up).

Now picture this: the Culture ships shows up. With the capability to destroy entire worlds and star systems in tiny time fractions. With 90.000 drones that each can individually take on at the very least several Federation starships at the same time. Not too mention said vessels all fight their fights at -to say the least- impressive ranges and in -to say the least- downright silly low amounts of time. We're talking microseconds for entire battles here.

The Federation, by chance, discovers a weak spot in the Culture ship before all the fighting starts (they'd have too, by the time the fighting starts they'd allready have lost because of the speed of the Culture). Then they'd have to design, engineer, test, build and distribute several thousands of a totally new -not too mention paradigm shattering- weapon*.

Not only that, but they'd have to do all that before the Culture decides to attack. And even if they do manage to do all that they still have the range problems discussed at length before and the problem of Culture ships doing their fighting in microseconds instead of seconds/minutes.

*) Remember, the ship has 90.000 drones. They have to be dealt with as well. One ship with one weapon will not be enough.

Remember that on the show, even the fastest ever jury-rigged devices that actually work usually take several hours at least to be thought up and build. For comparisom, an hour is on the order of 360.000.000 times longer than the Culture takes to fight entire battles. Battles with thousands of ships. Battles which usually end up destroying starsystems.

And we're not just talking about some brilliant soul like Data or LaForge comming up with a single device. We're talking some brilliant soul like them comming up with the device, making sure Starfleet knows about it, having Starfleet build and distribute the stuff, praying the Culture ship lays dormant during that time and does not note what is going on, the device actually working as planned (which remains to be seen, no proof has been given by GStone that this device he has thought up actually works. It's just a guess after all), the launched device not being intercepted, detected as a threat or otherwise neutralized, the device hitting the proper spot on the ship and having enough yield, etc, etc, etc.

The amount of failure levels for just the device working are enormous allready. And that is all assuming they actually manage to get it in time. Which is even more of a problem.

I mean, Starfleet are no pushovers. They're not idiots. They might even think this idea up. But they just don't have the time to excecute it. And even if they did**, delivering the 'bomb' so to speak is practically impossible and all of this assumes that a) the Culture ship does nothing, detects nothing and is stupid enough to assume the 'mysterious bomb-like-devices' being thrown at it are no threat at all, despite the Culture's obvious abilities to actually scan, gather information and correlate that information to see what is going on.

**) Remember, all that designing, building, testing and distributing of a new weapon takes time. And no, that is not 'an hour or so'. Try 'several months, perhaps even years***'. And against what GStone might want, that Culture ship can do whatever the hell it likes during that time. Like say blowing up the facilities making the weapons. Or perhaps just blowing up the entire darned Federation, the Klingons and perhaps the Romulans too for fun.

***) Based on previous enhancements by Starfleet to weapons, shields, etc. The Quantum torpedo (an anti-Borg weapon first) took two to three years to develop. Not too mention it failed at it's role because the Borg where not beaten by Quantum torpedo's at all in the end. They where beaten by superior intelligence, not superior weapons. Multinutational shields took months to develop and worked for only about a minute longer than the usual setup (both of these examples go to show that a) it takes long to develop a new weapon - even in Starfleet land and b) even a tested new weapon, shield, device does not nearly always work 100% right in actual combat scenario's. Etc, etc, etc.

This is not an uphill battle, this is a darned slaughter. Of the Federation that is.



That said:

A far, far, far better counter to this scenario would be to point out that it pretty much goes against every single thing we hear about what the Culture are actually like. It's exceedingly unlikely that said scenario would actually occur since the Culture are well, nice. And suspension of disbelief only goes so far ;)

(But again, if 'the battle' does occur, the Federation, new uber weapon or not, will almost certainly lose. They'd pretty much need not an act of Q, but a whole darned army-of-Q's doing act's of Q for them to win)


Oh and before I get labeled as an 'enemy of the Federation': I like the Feds. I usually defend them in ST-VS-SW and ST-VS-OTHERS debates. Because I like them and believe they are not nearly the Sci-Fi pushovers that most seem to think they are.

But even so... The Culture vs the Federation? Get real, that's like pitting me against the entire armed forces of the USA with me getting a paper spitwad as entire armanent and being in firing range of their guns.

Narsil
Jedi Knight
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Post by Narsil » Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:01 pm

Roondar wrote:First off: Hi to all. I'm new here :)
Well you're not new to the people; GStone, CCN, Oragahn you know, and I was on STrek-v-SWars under the name of Dakarne. Welcome back.
Second: I actually joined these boards over this absolutely silly thread. Sorry to call it that, but it's just so wrong there is still debate over this issue.
I made this silly thread for a silly laugh. I also made it for a silly laugh back on the old boards. GStone just can't pay attention to any of the rather valid points made. And to nitpick; the Culture vessel does not have drones in the traditional sense, they're much closer to a bunch of remote-controlled ROU vessels. They're like 'unmanned' (Culture ships aren't manned regardless, so maybe 'unminded' might work) warships.

GStone
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Post by GStone » Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:14 pm

Narsil wrote:Oh, for fuck's sake. I've already told you why it won't work; your device does not instantly occupy every space on a ship at once.
'Oh, for fuck's sake' yourself. I have never implied or outright stated that was a requirement of my proposal. For the last few posts of mine, I have said why it wasn't necessary.
It's limited by light-speed. There's a reason the Culture never uses gridfire in local combat, and that's because it's useless.
A light speed limitation is irrelevent. It doesn't matter why they don't use it in local combat. My scenario makes it a nonissue.
Because nothing in the Culture is limited by light-speed. And I'd like you to prove that the gravitational gridfire can affect a ship in hyperspace.
Given that I have never said that could or must happen, your demand that I prove that to you is irrelevent. It's possible that they might be able to scan in Culture's hyperspace and send it through, but I don't know it's possible. Even with the cosmology of older/younger universes, there isn't enough known about the Culture's cosmology to be certain. So, I haven't made it a staple of my argument.

However, you admit to the possibility of it happening on page 1:

"And the Culture's own hyperspace making them completely immune to anything going on in realspace - to the point where they always choose to fight while they're in hyperspace - is enough to make them rather hard to attack from the point of view of a gravity bomb in realspace. It's certainly possible, but these are beings which view Black Holes as abstract problems rather than actual threats. They could just effectorise the bomb into uselessness the second they detect it."
They're infinitely faster, can hit from longer ranges, react within less than a microsecond to combat, has weapons that can destroy a planet within a split second, has several thousand years of combat experience and is a lot smarter than the Federation due to how fast and cleverly they think.

You have got no point.
Bow down to your Culture overlords, if you want with this exceedingly simple thinking of what would happen. MO.
Typically as long as a photon torpedo. It's mounted on a typical Federation ship isn't it?
Not necessarily. The potential size can be variable.
And the Federation isn't going to instantly resort to using these weapons, like I said, and it won't have time. It will resort to the use of photons and phasers because that's what they always do (prove otherwise, please), and they shall never get in range to do otherwise.
You accuse me of taking your words out of context and I show you I am using them in your specified context. And you follow it up by repeating that context. Predictable. I'll MO.
Actually, they begin in hyperspace and the Federation cannot identify objects that are in hyperspace as it effectively phase-cloaks a ship. Of course, you ignore that every time it's useful for your side; because the Idirans also had the advantage of hyperspace, and that's how they could match Culture ships at all.
Yes, it's a very nice massage of the opening post. Only now are you saying they're in the middle of Fed space, while in hyperspace. So, this wormhole that drops them off isn't appearing in normal space, which has been the implication all along that you have been going with. It's a supposedly hyperspace only wormhole now. You were saying they were too fast and can shoot from too far away for the Feds to get accurate sensor readings to know what the hell was going on.

I would say this is curious of you, but it's very typical of you.
Sure, if they run out of energy...oh wait. Data left the perimeter of the subspace field devices and staid temporally phased. It's only when he went through the temporal portal and went to the past that he unphased, which was standard operating procudre for the aliens and the portal. The script says there's a portable box with a handle, but the ep showed the generators on stands on the ground. And even so, the generator would be on the ship anyway. Oh drat.
And wouldn't the weapons themselves remain temporally phased? It's hard to hurt someone with a weapon that doesn't quite occupy the same space-time continuum as they do.
[face palm]

Let's recap Time's Arrow quickly. The point of being temporally phased was that there was no interaction with what's not phased. They occupied the same physical space, but not be there at the same time. The away team couldn't communicate with Data. Only Data could talk to them, but it was entirely one way. His comm signal had to be sent to change to be in temporal synch with the rest of the away team.
They cannot replicate deuterium (VOY: Demon), moving on.
But, they do have fusion generators. Not everything runs on m/am reactions. Impulse engines can be used to make graviton based space-time distortions for sublight. Graviton generators can work off of just fusion.
So, lineguns, fields, and electromagnetic effectors anyone?
Then, provide evidence lineguns, fields and effectors can touch temporally phased objects.

GStone
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Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 10:16 am
Location: Undercover in Culture space

Post by GStone » Sat Oct 27, 2007 1:46 am

Roondar wrote:First off: Hi to all. I'm new here :)
Howdy. It's been a while.
Despite all the -sorry to use the term- McGuyverisms of the Startrek shows, Starfleet has never shown the ability to create entirely new weapons in under a day or so. Defenses against the Borg took them literally months, if not years to build and they knew what they where fighting in the Borg and also knew what would have to be different for them to have a chance. And even so, they still couldn't get it quite right even in the years that passed between the first Borg contact and the events in First Contact (where they won by Picards chance knowledge, they where busy losing till he showed up).
Designing weapons and defenses against the adapting capabilities of the borg is different from what the Feds are up against here.
The Federation, by chance, discovers a weak spot in the Culture ship before all the fighting starts (they'd have too, by the time the fighting starts they'd allready have lost because of the speed of the Culture).
Beforehand is not necessary.
Then they'd have to design, engineer, test, build and distribute several thousands of a totally new -not too mention paradigm shattering- weapon*.
It's not really paradigm shifting. It isn't an entirely new technology. Just a twist on weapon usage. It's no more applied science than the self-replicating, cloaked mines that were put at the bajoran wormhole.
And even if they do manage to do all that they still have the range problems discussed at length before and the problem of Culture ships doing their fighting in microseconds instead of seconds/minutes.
And if some of the Culture ships (or just one) got blown up, you don't think they'd come and investigate and not with just long range sensors?
*) Remember, the ship has 90.000 drones. They have to be dealt with as well. One ship with one weapon will not be enough.
If one side can't touch the other, one ship can be enough, but it'd take time. Mini 'drones' working independently by creating more can compensate for some of the deficiency.
And we're not just talking about some brilliant soul like Data or LaForge comming up with a single device. We're talking some brilliant soul like them comming up with the device, making sure Starfleet knows about it, having Starfleet build and distribute the stuff, praying the Culture ship lays dormant during that time and does not note what is going on, the device actually working as planned (which remains to be seen, no proof has been given by GStone that this device he has thought up actually works. It's just a guess after all), the launched device not being intercepted, detected as a threat or otherwise neutralized, the device hitting the proper spot on the ship and having enough yield, etc, etc, etc.
1. Since when would all of this have to be thought of before the Culture ships come through the wormhole? All that'd truly be required beforehand is someone experimenting with the temporal phasing subspace fields. Given how much research is done in the Federation, odds are in favor of someone doing this research or some variation of it.

2. They jurry rigged the comm signal and their shields (which are graviton based space-time continuum distortions) are easily set to various phase frequencies. Given the simplicity of how it works and the application of known science, you aren't giving the Feds enough credit.
The amount of failure levels for just the device working are enormous allready. And that is all assuming they actually manage to get it in time. Which is even more of a problem.
All of these are requirement/failure levels that are needlessly added in. You're overthinking this.
delivering the 'bomb' so to speak is practically impossible and all of this assumes that a) the Culture ship does nothing, detects nothing and is stupid enough to assume the 'mysterious bomb-like-devices' being thrown at it are no threat at all, despite the Culture's obvious abilities to actually scan, gather information and correlate that information to see what is going on.
I'm not saying they'd get the right targeting placements immediately off the bat. There'd be some trial and error, but it isn't entirely impossible. First, we've seen recalibration of sensors to pick up on things with different phase variances than what's in 'normal space' for Trek. Take Scientific Method. Given that they would be sending energy from the known and altered phase state they take on and know what they changed from, it would not be hard to come up with a phase variance to scan normal space to see what's going on, while staying temporally cloaked.

Also, look at all the times when they've scanned the phase variances of weapons, shields, astronomy phenom of the week #654 over and over again. How things, like cosmic strings and warp signatures, have subspace (phase variance) characteristics that are a part of every day scanning techniques.

The Culture has also shown the capabilities of scanning phase variances of what is presumably the phase variances for the relationships between older and younger universes. But, even if you assumed that there is a strong similarity between these 2 types of phase variances, there are also stark contrasts. For example, the phase variance of Scientific Method or Time's Arrow is not an entirely new universe, like the grid of the Culture's hyperspace zone. It's more like the domain of the aliens from Schisms that were abducting the E-D's crew. A sub-universe of one main universe. Scanning the not sub-universe version of phase variances is a capability not shown by the Culture.

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