Starfleet was only able to rally 40 ships during the first Borg incursion as a final defense line, and basically no organized defense effort from the point the Borg cube entered Federation space to when it reached Wolf 359 (mind you that could be attributed to spetacularly stupid fleet deployment). The number of ships in system seems to be rather small, despite it being the biggest collection of Starfleet orbital facilities besides maybe Antares. You only had a single ship chasing after Harry in that alternate reality eps of VOY, I think Quark ran into a Nebula in orbit of Earth in "Little Green Man", and while the Lakota and the Defiant was busy creaming eachother, no other ships can along to say "hey, what the heck are you guys doing?"

Then there's the Breen attack on Starfleet HQ. Wyomn (sp?) or Damar kept saying how it's a pitty they lost so many ships, making it sound like they lost a lot of ships. So Starfleet must have mustered up a significant force to defend Earth, but still letting enough Breen ships getting past to crack the defenses around Starfleet HQ. However we're not quite sure just how many Breen ships there were, and how far they got into Federation space before they were detected and engaged.

I think I'm confusing myself here.

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"God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
 

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"Although, from what I understand, having travelled around the Mid-west quite a bit, apparently Jesus is coming, so I guess the choice now is we should decide whether we should spit or swallow."
-Maynard James Keenan
 

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OH NO< THE OLD MAN WALKS HIS GREEN DOG THAT SHOTS PINBALLS!~!!!
--
Jeff K
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" and nothing at all will happen.

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"I'm beginning to think that there'll be NO forced mating at ALL!" --Professor Hubert T. Farnsworth
 

"Okay ... ready ... aim ... FIRE!"

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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Average Rated 8.32 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with seven eps posted)
***
"Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!"
-Omega 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
***
"I think this reason why girls don't do well on multiple choice tests goes all the way back to the Bible, all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve. God said, 'All right, Eve, multiple choice or multiple orgasms, what's it going to be?' We all know what was chosen" - Rush Limbaugh, Feb. 23, 1994.

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"It strikes me that there are enough episodes of the Simpsons that people could speak entirely in Simpsonese, using references from the show to explain or describe an endless series of situations. Nelson and Apu . . . at Tinagra.

But now I�ve brought Star Trek into it again, haven�t I. Sorry."

- James Lileks, 09/04/2001
 

We (I) rulez! Dude.

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You know, when Comedy Central asked us to do a Thanksgiving episode, the first thought that went through my mind was, "Boy, I'd like to have sex with Jennifer Aniston."
-Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park
 

When we saw invasions of Earth, the parties responsible were superpowerful. V'Ger was said to have shut down Earth's planetary defence systems, so we never got to see what those systems were. The Whale Probe did the same. The Borg silenced a Jupiter Outpost with a high double-digit number, so perhaps there were a hundred or more such outposts to be silenced; it blasted apart three defence vessels, so perhaps there were dozens to be blasted. Most of the Borg blasting was done off screen, and when the Enterprise arrived, it is possible that significant amounts of defence hardware had already been destroyed (although we didn't see the flotsam when we zoomed in on the Cube in orbit - perhaps it had burned up in the atmosphere already, in the vicinity of the volume we saw?).

When the Lakota fought the Defiant, there was no clear indication that this was anywhere near Earth. In fact, Leyton would probably have wanted to stop the intruder as far away from Earth as possible, and since the Defiant wasn't running under cloak (treaty forbidding, plus high warp and cloaks don't mix), a distant intercept was relatively simple to set up.

As for what Earth could have in its protection, I just learned that "Whom Gods Destroy" dialogue confirms the existence of planet-covering shields (thanks, Graham!). So that's one "must" item. Then perhaps orbital weapon platforms (the things we see blinking out on the tactical display in TMP when V'Ger makes its move), armed with phasers and torpedoes. Probably swarms of very small local defence ships, but these wouldn't be deployed in battles where they wouldn't make any difference (for example, sending a "Peregrine" interceptor against a Borg Cube, even in swarms, would be futile).

Surface-mounted torpedo launchers seem possible as well (perhaps these would be considered "missile" launchers in this case), as do surface-mounted high-power beam weapons. We already know there are stockpiles of infantry weapons to counter an invasion ("Homefront"); there might be heavier surface-fighting gear as well, and local shields, and possibly transporter-based weapons using the hardwired, unjammable commercial transporter nets that probably cover the planet.

Starships might not be available in great numbers in low orbit - more probably, these would mostly flock around Mars (and in the Whale Probe attack be paralyzed there, in the Borg one be already sent to Wolf 359 - only in TMP was it explicitly stated that there were no other starships present in the Sol system). There might even be a treaty prohibiting Starfleet from deploying starship permanently near Earth, like a Roman general was forbidden from taking his legions to Rome proper...

Also, I suspect this "Mars defence perimeter" was only intended to protect Mars, not the system in general. The Cube simply took a scenic route, visiting ALL the outer military installations in the system (Jupiter was mentioned, Saturn and Mars were shown) and blasting to bits their local defence perimeters before proceeding to Earth. That way, the Cube could protect its rear during the actual assimilation process, by preemptively eliminating even the futilest pieces of resistance remaining in the system.

Timo Saloniemi
 

1. As mentioned there hadn't been much penetrating the Feds all the way to Earth for a long time until the Borg.

2. As the whole 'story' behind Homefront/Paradise Lost attests too, Earth is a Paradise, but what sort of a paradise is it when you have armed guards roaming the streets. I feel this might apply to the defence of the planet too... Earth wouldn't be Earth, if it were some heavily fortified installation. I assume this would be the same for other 'core worlds'.

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Homer: I'm gonna miss Springfield. This town's been awfully good to us.
Bart: No, it hasn't, Dad. That's why we're leaving.
Homer: Oh, yeah. [pokes his head out the window] So long, Stinktown!
 

Orbiting Weapons platforms make the most sense.

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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!"

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"The Starships of the Federation are the physical, tangible manifestations of Humanity�s stubborn insistence that life does indeed mean something."
Spock to Leonard McCoy in "Final Frontier"

Phaser batteries and torpedo launching arrays on orbit - around the Moon as well, seeing as it's a colony.

Ditto for Mars (colony and Utopia Planetia).

"Mars Defense Perimeter" = last line of defense. Villains cross it? Shit thyself.

I'd like to think that all the large moons in the solar system would have some military capabilities, but what's the point?

I mean, unless they've long-range assault launching capabilites (which I'd say Utopia is the only one remotely able to pull it off - manpower, starship support, etc), they're of no use to anyone.

Say someone attacks Earth - the only way places like Io or Callisto would be able to make a difference would be
a) they had assault launching capabilities

b) the attacking ships "island-hopped" from one planet to the next, pushing back the Fed defensive line

c) all the planetoids with guns were aligned just so that they coincided perfectly with the attackers route (cha-ha).

d) they had missile-launcher arrays that could be plunged into large (invasion-sized) fleets - missiles would be too slow to be used effectively against small numbers of ships - a few decent yield M/AM explosions within a fleet would decimate a small one, or demoralize a large one.

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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!"

ie: Starships. Maybe the Sabre-class ships are from the defense fleet (Sol Station). Since they are small (around the size of the Defiant?) - it would seem to make sense.

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Faster than light - no left or right.
 

But I'd consider these planetoid arrays/platforms as being absolutely last-resort things, to be used when interception had failed to the point of disaster.

Look at it this way:

• The Romulan and Cardassian fleet in 'The Die Is cast' couldn't have numbered more than 15 ships, could it (going by the pics of the ships, and the number of "blasts" that hit the Founders planet)? They destroyed 30% of the planets crust in one volley!! OK, the ships were powerful (D'Deridex and Galors), but they attacked from a fairly close range, IMO).

• The Breen ships in 'The Changing Face of Evil' could have done the same amount of damage, but were obviously intercepted (after decloaking, IMO) very quickly by STARSHIPS. Look at what they did - wrecked StarFleet Heaadquaters in San Fransisco. Not the city. Not the borough. The HEADQUARTERS.

I reckon that the only reason that the Romulans/Cardassians were able to hammer the planet so quickly was because they were unopposed during the initial attack (quickly rectified ).

Now the Breen either
1. Decloaked, got a few shots in, and were decimated, or
2. (no cloaks) Warped in from various vectors, dropped to impulse somewhere, were intercepted but some got through to straffe ST Headquarters once or twice before getting atomized.
More I think of it, the less likely 2. seems - they had to have had cloaks.

Blast - all this had a point.

oh yeah - Starships alone are insufficient for a determined enemy.
Too many enemy ships vs. not having enough => supplement them with unmanned platforms etc etc.

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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!"

Having seen no evidence of orbital defenses on Earth, I think we are forced to assume either lunar-based (torpedo-launchers or interceptors), or system-based (Sabre fleet?). If there had been orbital weapons, we would have seen them taking out some of the aforementioned hostile vessels.

Also, one of the best forms of defense is early information. I'd assume that the Solar system's sensor net is fairly tight (except for cloaked ships). An interceptor task force could be vectored onto any threat fairly efficiently. And it would make more sense to station the interceptors as close to the target as possible (lunar orbit?).

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Faster than light - no left or right.
 

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"God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."

 

As for the Cardassian/Romulan and Breen attacks, I think they could be downplayed a bit if necessary. The former could have destroyed 30% of its designated target area, not of the entire surface (the dialogue and visuals certainly allow for this, and such rate of destruction would also better fit the initial estimates of how long it would take to melt the planet to slag). The latter attack could have lasted for two seconds, or two hours, and involved a rapid delivery of a superior weapon, or a long and bloody battle where a few shots got through. I tend towards the latter, considering that the destruction seemed so sporadic and minor (pillars of smoke from various spots in the city, a damaged HQ building instead of a smoking crater, a severed instead of vaporized Golden Gate bridge).

Timo Saloniemi
 

The Dominion has used ground-based beam weapons as well - 'Once More Unto The Breach' - they seemed pretty effective to me.

I think we would have heard about/seen Earth's orbital weapons by now, if they existed at all.

FOrce:
The Chin'Toka assault fleet was an invasion force, not one committed to nuking the planet. They had to take out all forms of the planet's defensive system before they could start landing troops on it.

If they wanted the planet wiped out, a simple missile launch from a planetary site or an attack � la 'For The Uniform' would be much easier.

David:
It took a heap of Starships, fixed in position, to maintain the tachyon grid in 'Redemption' - I'd balk at the logisitcal necessities for one required to cover the Solar System from all angles!

------------------
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!"

------------------
"God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."

 

but it also must be costly to set up such a system
even though they were unmanned.

of course people argue the cardassains were idiots to have them all use the same power source that was incredibly not hard to find.
why didn't each platform have their own generator? people asked....

i think giving each generator would weaken the platforms. each will have weaker shields due to their small generator...whereas the main generator could have supplied alot of power to a single platforms under attack and not waste power to ones that weren't.

plus giving a platform each their own generator would have been a waste of resources.

but starleet deffinately should improve upon this tech.
 

Just where were the shields on that ship?

BTW, we do know a little about Earth's global defense from that map in "Paradise Lost" showing most of the major cities connected through routes. On the other hand, the fact there are no reliable back-ups for the power grids employed by Earth seem a little to sloppy for a major homeworld.

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Ace

"Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

About the Defiant penetrating Earth's surveillance nets: I don't think she ever did that. In "Paradise Lost", she was heading towards Earth at high speed, uncloaked, when she was intercepted by the Lakota in what looked like deep space. Worf decided it was too late to cloak since the Lakota was already firing. A battle ensued, the Lakota capitulated, and both ships then sailed to Earth openly and without cloaking.

In "The Die is Cast", the Romulans estimated they'd destroy the planet's crust in an hour, and the mantle in five after that. What they ended up with was 30% of the crust destroyed with initial volley. But the wording (which I have to check once again) did NOT explicitly claim it was 30% of the WHOLE planet (although this may have been the writers' intention). The word "planet" was not used in the sentence.

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Don't kill me, I'm charming!

 

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"When I said to get involved in the gay community, I didn't mean to sleep with everyone in it."
Michael_T
 

But having the orbit of Earth be empty is easy enough to explain. It's simply that all the stuff in orbit is so far away from all the other stuff that it cannot be seen. Only when two pieces of hardware are functionally connected (like the "orbital office" and its apparently associated dock facilities in TMP, with all those workbees shuttling in between) will they be close enough to each other to be seen with naked eye.

If Earth has orbital weapon platforms, they are probably higher up than the orbits we have visited, and more distributed than the corresponding systems of Chin'toka or Cardassia Prime, owing to greater range, better targeting systems, and higher reliance on the power of diplomacy and starship deterrence... We'd then not see the platforms, unless we saw an actual attack and the platforms started firing.

Timo Saloniemi
 

And you don't destroy a spotted owl's habitat when the thing goes BOOM.

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Faster than light - no left or right.
 

I'm 75%+ sure that TOS references getting shields up as = to becoming invisible to primitive cultures. I'd think this sort of capability would be crucial for sneaking in to look at pre-warp civilizations and such - same idea would absorb and defeat radar/laser based detection systems.

The big bonus for Earth would be that if all the various orbital "suburbs" aren't visible then you can still have your nice night sky.

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TK

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Faster than light - no left or right.
 

Not that I agree with the idea - I think it's daft to be quite honest - but I'm just being annoying.

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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!"

Now, ST shields seem to have the implied capability of absorbing nearly all energy in a given EM wavelength spread - if they didn't then a "simple" laser would be able to carve up the ship. If they can absorb laser energy then they should be able to absorb the visible light shining on them from the sun, at least enough to not be visible to the naked eye/telescope/radar receiver. The flaw in this is heat - the starship would need some way to radiate the heat absorbed, but ST ships don't ever seem to worry about physics so that shouldn't be a problem.

The Romulans wouldn't care, as the ship isn't "cloaked" it just isn't shiny. If you came along side you'd simply see a big black blob where the ship was...

Of course something else they could steal from the stealth fighter is the idea of painting their ships black. Because, see, the thing about space is....

Of course this is all somewhat off the thread's topic.

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TK

I think.

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OH NO< THE OLD MAN WALKS HIS GREEN DOG THAT SHOTS PINBALLS!~!!!
--
Jeff K
****
Read three (three!) chapters of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet" and nothing at all will happen.

------------------
"God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."

 

In addition to "Tomorrow is Yesterday", at least TOS "Assignment: Earth" and VOY "Future's End" featured starships becoming invisible to Earth's radar systems by using their standard shields in some special mode. I agree that such partial cloaking is probably well outside the parameters of the Algeron treaty - as are the various holographic countermeasures we've seen in "Who Watches the Watchers" or "Basics" etc. Only "complete" cloaks count as illegal.

And Earth would partially cloak its orbital platforms anyway (paint them black or something) to protect the said spotted owl. Thousands of such platforms on the sky would ruin the starscape if they reflected sunlight...

Timo Saloniemi