Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Why an Oberth at Wolf 359?

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Posted by Soontir_Fel on :

I was watching Emissary a few days ago and noticed that during Sisko's time in his messy quarters, there was an Oberth-class starship outside the window. Granted, this ship took one, maybe two hits, and was vaped by the cube.

My question is this: Why did Starfleet have an Oberth at the Battle of Wolf 359 (don't tell me I already asked this in the subject line)? It's a science vessel! It's for research, not combat! What was SF thinking.

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"Asteroids do not concern me, Admrial. I want that ship, not excuses."

-Lord Darth Vader (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back)

Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

It is also used as a specialized cargo carrier, technical transport. It could have been making a delivery of weapons that were being worked on at UP and an off loading error cost them the ship. Bad timing, or they thought the E-D would stop the Borg before hand, so they lolligagged....

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
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Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :

My line of reasoning was that since they needed every ship in the area, and an Oberth was one of those ships, she was sent into combat. It's better to have one extra ship than none at all, even though she may not be able to do much.

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Groundskeeper Willy: Yeah, I bought your mutt - and I 'ate 'im! [Bart gasps.] I 'ate 'is little face, I 'ate 'is guts, and I 'ate the way 'e's always barkin'! So I gave 'im to the church.
Bart: Ohhh, I see... you HATE him, so you gave him to the church.
Groundskeeper Willy: Aye. I also 'ate the mess he left on me rug. [Bart stares.] Ya heard me!

Posted by colin (Member # 217) on :

Another question-
why is the Oberth moving in a parallel direction to the cube, presenting the starship's port side to the weapons of the Borg?

The Oberth class starship is hit by a single beam on the port side, somewhere between the warp nacelle and the connecting pylon.

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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Um, random chance?

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Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :

RUN AWAY!! RUN AWAY!!

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Well, there could be several reasons

1. Its a ship close by.
2. It might be housing an 'experimental weapon'?
3. It was there for primarily ramming reasons.

4. It could also show us the state of the Federation at the time.

a. It could show that at the time - things had been relatively peaceful (which they had) and that a majority of Federation ships were out there... way out there exploring (like the Olympia) It was lucky that the Enterprise - which was on its way 'out there' got called back to Earth in Season 1 and had Romulan and Klingon matters to attend to, which allowed it to be 'close by' when the Borg finally arrived.

b. Maybe the 'fleet' that Shelby?? Mentioned about getting back up to full strength is a 'reserve' fleet that is to deal with primarily 'core world' matters, and that for so long there hand been any deep penetrations into the heart of the Federation that it had Oberths assigned to a 'core world fleet'. After BOBW, all the ships started coming back 'home'. PLUS newer ships were built AND older ships were brought out of retirement and 'experimental ships' were back on the agenda. I.e. the Norways/Defiants etc.

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Posted by Soontir_Fel on :

I thought I read somewhere that an Oberth's standard armament is two light phasers for navigational debris clearing. Maybe in one of the William Shatner books.

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"Asteroids do not concern me, Admrial. I want that ship, not excuses."

-Lord Darth Vader (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back)

Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :

Core world fleet? That makes sense, since only 40 ships were present in a few hours notice. Then in DS9, starfleet was able to mass a fleet of over 600 ships.

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Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :

This goes to Starships. You'll find it there.

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Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

In VOY: "Infinite Regress" Seven assumed the personality of a woman who was going to meet her son, officer on the Melbourne(?), at Wolf 359. The last thing she said was that they got into the attack (and she was obviously assimiliated). I am quite sure that the Oberth (U.S.S. Bonestell) must have been her transport ship - not that I think the writers were that smart too.

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[This message has been edited by Bernd (edited April 23, 2001).]

Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :

i think they're are plenty of oberths at the second battle of 001 in first contact

i mean its life and death-every ship counts--in the end that one little ship may just make a difference---not really against the borg but it just may....

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

You don't really need to be in a big Akira to order "RAMMING SPEED!"

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Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :

That's one way of putting it.

Posted by USS Vanguard (Member # 130) on :

Silly Oberth, trix are for kids

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Signatures are for losers

[This message has been edited by USS Vanguard (edited April 23, 2001).]

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

There's also an old naval wisdom, from the times of gun-based combat: the side with reserves loses.

Back when ships fought primarily with guns, at ranges where every ship participating in the battle could theoretically hit every other ship, the side that had the more ships would automatically win. The more ships you had, the more enemy ships your initial volley would cripple, thus increasing your lead volley by volley. You would win absolutely nothing by holding back a number of ships and then throwing them into the battle at some later moment.

Phaser-based battles typical of TNG could very well abide to the same rules. The best and most cunning strategy one could think of would be to throw *everything* at the enemy at once, firing every phaser simultaneously, from big bad type 10 arrays to puny type 5 self-defence guns. It would not matter whether your firing platform was capable of defending itself - if the first volley worked, there would be no need for defence; and if it didn't, then the more ships you had, the more targets you would present to the enemy, and the lower the odds that the enemy would cripple your *important* ships.

So sending in completely unarmed ships would also make some tactical sense, even if you weren't fighting a hopelessly desperate battle. Their presence would scatter enemy fire, unless the enemy could quickly sort out which ships were harmless and which weren't. And sending in minimally armed ships would be a smart move, since the enemy would then have to decide whether to ignore them during the early volleys (and let them enter their effective weapons range) or destroy them early on (and thus allow the far more dangerous capital ships to survive longer).

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :

Just for the little history lesson I will give you one too:

During the hunt for the Bismark, the HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales were hunting down the Bismark and the Prinze Eugen. The German ships look a like, so when the two british battleships first fire on the Germans they thought the Prinze Eugen a heavy cruiser was the Bismark (over 10 miles you can't see shit unless you got good eyes) This freed up the Bismark to fire at will. However what is general common knownledge that the Bismark herself sunk the Hood, it is also the possbility that a 8" shell from the Prinze Eugen was able to detonate a ammunition bunker/torpedoes/guns/ etc whatever you believe.

What this has to do with the Oberth? Well even though the Oberth was probably the weakest ship in the fleet, it was a target for the Borg to concentrate on while bigger more powerful ships fire on the cube, though this is suicide but hey they were going to die anyway soemwhere along the line, its part of the service. Also the ship could have been a flying bomb for a ramming course to at least severely damage the cube.

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Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :

I keep coming back to the fact that in Star Trek IV, Oberths weren't considered "starships", they were considered "smaller vessels". And if the fleet Hanson pulled together consisted of 40 STARSHIPS, how many "smaller vessels" were there also...?

At any rate, I don't count the Bonestell when counting Wolf 359 starships.

--Jonah

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--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH

Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :

You are the weakest starship, good-bye!

But, seriously, just because the Oberth was considered a "small ship" in the 2280s doesn't mean it still is in the 2370s, 90 years later!

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Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :

True, after the Galaxy's came out they were redesignated as tiny....

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"One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget
Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant
Star Trek: Legacy
Read them, rate them, got money, film them

"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV

Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :

...But then Voyager came along, and Oberths were GRAND again!

Ever notice how virtually all ships in Voyager are smaller than the star starship? And how most external shots of Voyager are from below the ship, making her look big? It's all perspective.

Mark

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Posted by TheF0rce (Member # 533) on :

actualy alot of ships in voyager are bigger than the poor lost intrepid----but i could only count a few that would have actualy been bigger than the galaxy class.

in my oppionion the delta quadrant if without the borg and 4 or 5 other species would be ripe for conquest---they're such an entire quadrants of idiots.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

I think, in the TOS days (and maybe the movie era), "starship" was a specific term. Now, it basically means any ship that holds more than a couple people...

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Not to mention the most important thing an Oberth could do in a battle with the Borg. Record it.

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Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :

Yes, of couse it's on!! I can see the red light, for God's sake! Ooh, start again.

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At that point, McDonald fired his gun three times in the air to emphasize his point. The crowd, estimated at 350,000, loudly cheered the new candidate.

"Let me make this clear: I am the law! I am your ruler! And you will have fries with that, motherf*cker!"

Posted by Soontir_Fel on :

Ah, yes, I see, the starships you have the longer it takes to wipe them out. Or something along those lines. I bet now that the Oberth was there to take some of the cube's attention from some of the other ships (it still didn't do that well of a job, lasting a couple seconds).

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"Asteroids do not concern me, Admrial. I want that ship, not excuses."

-Lord Darth Vader (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back)

Posted by Starbuck (Member # 153) on :

Why was an Oberth at Wolf 359?
Well, why not?

I mean, we had all kinds of ships there - the Phase II prototypes, and apparently a Constitution refit, plus those kitbashed ships with marker-pen nacelles...

I think Starfleet threw everything they could muster at the Borg out of desperation. Sometimes, even one phaser can make a difference...

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Soontir, we don't know that the Oberth lasted a few seconds... It could have been holding out its own for an hour before we saw it...

Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :

No it couldn't. "Emissary" pretty well chronicled the opening moments of the massacre from Locutus' speech through the first few minutes of fighting before the Saratoga was destroyed.

--Jonah

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"It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."

--Col. Edwards, ROBOTECH

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Still, it probably took some time for Sisko to get from the ruined bridge to the ruined quarters - so we *are* talking minutes instead of seconds here. Meaning that the Oberth fared better than the Melbourne-labeled Excelsior at least...

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Also, as per First Contact, what about all the ships on the other side... we only saw in Emissary a grand total of 6 ships... one of those ships was a floating wreck.

Excelsior
Ambassador
Nebula
Miranda Variant
Oberth
Wreck...