Hi :)GStone wrote:Howdy. It's been a while.Roondar wrote:First off: Hi to all. I'm new here :)
Indeed, this is much, much harder for them to do - the Borg weapons and shields where just 'crank the photons to 11' and 'change my shield frequencies at random'. This is a whole different ballgame and kind of my point isn't it?Designing weapons and defenses against the adapting capabilities of the borg is different from what the Feds are up against here.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).
After the fighting starts there is no more Federation. Thats the point of my post - the Culture is so incredibly powerful in weapons that waiting until they start attacking makes it too late to win.Beforehand is not necessary.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).
Using it as a weapon is the paradigm shift. I'm 100% sure that using a self-replicating minefield wasn't thought up in a day either. (stupid idea anyway, your mines would get lower yield with each attempt to get through. You'd better just replace the mines yourself or have them move around on their own power)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.Then they'd have to design, engineer, test, build and distribute several thousands of a totally new -not too mention paradigm shattering- weapon*.
They'd have to get in range before they can actually fire. The Culture ship can -and considering the scenario will- destroy them before they do. And even if they do get in range, they can just destroy them then ages before the fire command is even fully spoken aboard whatever Federation ship is present.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?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.
Again, that was the point. Long range sensors would show the Federation this: we send in a ship to look at an anomaly. They suddenly vanished. Hey, what the !%$@, a starsystem just vanished. OMG, 10.000 of our ships got destroyed. And that's just the first ohh, second or so of combat. You've not thought this trough - the Culture ship won't stand still for the Federation to scan them. They'll be busy blowing them to a gazillion pieces (read the scenario, they're not going to be nice about it).
You're assuming that a) one side can't touch the other, which you did not prove one iota and b) that the side which can't be touched is the Federation side.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.*) Remember, the ship has 90.000 drones. They have to be dealt with as well. One ship with one weapon will not be enough.
You're also assuming that the enemy, given the years needed to hunt each and every single one of them down would stand still and not figure out what is going on. Considering the Culture's minds capabilities I find that very, very, very dishonest of you.
Much more likely they figure out what is going on before the Federation can destroy even one ship, considering how intelligent they're shown to be.
It would have to be thought up before the Culture attacks. Which is after they come out of the wormhole. Given how fast the Culture moves and how clear their orders are I don't think it's reasonable to assume that'll take even a day.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.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.
As too Federation research, we've seen the results -and more importantly, time frames- for that: it doesn't always produce results that work and it takes years. The Federation had no need for these weapons before, they see similar weapon/defense technologies, such as subspace weaponry and phase cloaking to be illegal, outlawed or at the very least stuff-that-is-bad etc. You're suggesting they're already halfway there at present. That would be flying against canon evidence (they never used such weapons before and phase cloaks are illegal and hence not in stock).
Ah yes, and how long did it take them to figure that out? Right, hours, days or even longer. In the case of the shortest time frames all that happened during a crisis (not before) and usually while they where being shot at.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.
See, that is why it's so ludicrous to consider them figuring it out. They're not attempting to do this in a vacuum, they are attempting to do it while being attacked by people who can one-shot them in under 10 microseconds a ship.
Again, you make the mistake of thinking I'm not giving the Federation credit. I *am* giving them credit - given time they have a shot at making the device. Point is however, they don't actually have time. Which is a good part of the reason this whole thing falls apart.
No they are not and no I'm not. I'm being realistic. Your scenario assumes the Feds get all the breaks they need and the Culture act like -forgive me the expression- a bunch of dumbasses who don't realize what is going on until it's far, far too late. You're not even considering the possibility of the Culture one-upping the Feds and figuring out what they're trying to do, nor are you even considering that the Culture, given their science level, might just see through all this phase-cloak nonsense. You're not even considering that the Culture ship might just move out of the way, shoot the weapon down or just plainly destroy the Fed forces before they can launch.All of these are requirement/failure levels that are needlessly added in. You're overthinking this.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.
In other words: you are assuming the Feds can operate in a vacuum and have perfect intelligence to boot, while the reality is they have about (and this is being nice) 30 seconds to figure it out after the Culture comes through the wormhole and have no idea what the hell is going on.
Temporally cloaked. Last time I saw the Feds that was not one of their core technologies. Care to explain how they managed to make such a cloak in the ridiculously small timeframe they have?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.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.
And no, an hour is way too long. Several orders of magnitude actually.
Besides, you are still flat-out refusing to accept that the Culture ship might just figure out 'hey, something is wrong' and do any of a million things they could to get the problem sorted. Such as finding the ship regardless of it's cloak*, moving out of the way, etc etc etc.
Your basic argument is still 'lalalala, Feds can do whatever they want and have allll the time in the universe, Culture is dumb... They can't see, hear, or do ANYTHING to stop them'. That is plain dishonest of you.
*) Remember, you are only assuming the Culture's phase-scanning is different from what the Feds can do. You're also only assuming that the Federation scanners could see a Culture ship in hyperspace. And not considering that if they can by the technology you're about to suggest for it that this would mean the Culture (being capable of the same) would actually see straight through your cloak.
Right. And because the Culture is dumb and slow, they can't figure it out. However, the Federation is smart and fast and not only figures it out in under an hour but manages to implement it without trouble at all. /sarcasmAlso, 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.
Listen GStone, I'll say it again - you are assuming a vacuum. Even in the episodes you named it took the Federation a whole lot more time to figure all these things out than they would have in this case. They have never shown this ability as a controlled, shipwide technology that is used for anything even remotely resembling what you suggest. Especially considering that Picard et al would rather die than let the Federation have phase-cloaks or similar devices.
To recap:
You're assuming the Federation will understand what is going on before it hits them. You're assuming the Culture will take ages to deploy it's forces - which is not needed at all. You're assuming the Federation will go for full force straight away and not try to send in diplomats first. You're assuming the Federation command chain is instant and communication Federation wide is likely instant. Your assuming the Federation gives up it's moral guidelines - which they where willing to die for. You're ignoring the reality of Federation weapons/defenses design - all examples there have them taking months, if not years to figure out a new weapon. You're ignoring the reality of Federation FTL travel speeds and scanning speeds. You're ignoring the limits of what the Federation actually has shown of this technology you propose to use. You're even ignoring that more often than not this type of technology fails to work as intended, has unforeseen sideeffects, or just plainly breaks down at the worst possible time.
And that is without me going into all the things you're assuming the enemy to not do or not be capable of. You're not even considering the Culture to be able to even get a hunch of what it going on.
Like I said earlier, that attitude is a wee bit dishonest.