posted
Instead of mucking up the big ol' questions thread, let's start a new one. We've amassed a considerable list of questions about the Battle of Wolf 359 (three pages of 10pt. text!), and have now had time to think about them before answering. Answer them here! And remember, this is NOT A "SHIPS OF WOLF 359" THREAD, DAMMIT!!!
First though, Let's list over the big questions. I've arranged them loosely into several categories for easier flow of thought.
Before the Battle
- How long did Starfleet have to assemble its fleet?
- Why was this fleet so small? And why was it made up of second-rate ships?
- DS9 "The Valiant" mentioned the old starship USS Republic (used as an Academy training ship), which presumably hadn't left the solar system in fifty years (as of 2374). This was presumably an attempt to reconcile Kirk's being a Lieutenant on the Republic while still at the academy. Also, the Republic was presumably an old Constitution (NCC-1371) class ship. In any case, could the old girl have had something to do (or not to do) with Wolf 359?
- Could the Borg cube have encountered other ships, Starfleet or not, along the way to Earth? What about other threat forces, like the Romulans? Or did they transwarp over that territory?
- Why was only one Cube sent in to sector 001 in the first place? I don't care who you are, or how powerful you are, sending one vessel to conquer an area is stupid.
- Where were the ships that participated stationed at exactly?
- Where exactly is wolf 359 in relation to earth?
- Why did the battle take place? It boggles the mind that the invincible Borg would stop in the middle of nowhere, just because a puny little flock of starships asked it to. Why didn't the Cube simply proceed straight to Earth at warp speed? How does Starfleet force its enemies out of warp, often seemingly without firing a single shot, when in "Time to Stand" we see that the actual job of getting an uncooperative ship to drop down to impulse is a real toughie, requiring a prolonged exchange of fire?
During the Fight
- What ships were at Wolf 359, aside from the ones we already know of?
- Who were the captains of the ships there? How many Admirals could have been there? What are their stories?
- Where'd all the escape pods go?
- Were there Starfleet cadets at Wolf 359? What role could the Academy have played?
- Just how long did the battle last?
- Where was the rest of the Fleet when Sisko's USS Saratoga was attacking? Why were only five ships seen in the opening scenes? Did the Saratoga's attack represent the beginning of the battle, or some point later on?
- What tactics did Starfleet try on the cube? Did they attempt anything hi-tech, or go for a traditional brawl of a battle?
- Why was the Excelsior-class starship blown apart within a few seconds, while it took several minutes for the Borg to take apart the Saratoga?
- We know that some people were assimilated during the battle. How many were assimilated? How did the Borg rationalize the number and type of people assimilated? Were civilians assimilated too?
- How did they assimilate people if they were blowing up their ships?
- I want to know why an Oberth was present at the battle. was it a scout? was it picking up escape pods? was Starfleet really that desperate for ships?
- In regards to the 40 ships, were these all Federation ships? Did Admiral Hanson not say in The Best of Both Worlds that the Klingons were sending ships as well? (As I recall, he even said that the Feds had considered contacting the Romulans.)
- How did Picard help or not help as Locutus in the battle?[We see him observing the ships of his old time freinds getting blown to scrap one by one]
- What was the exact strategy of the fed ships when the battle began? As the battle turned against them, what changed? (this goes into "what were their stories", but I'm talking specific things I would like to know in those tragic tales)
- Where were many of the other Trek series core characters at the time of Wolf 359? Some we know, others we don't. Sisko is obvious. Where was Harry Kim? (If that example is known, substitute somebody else.)
- Why didn't they hit the Borg cube with a genesis device if they were looking for a good weapon?
- What was the shuttlecraft from the Liberator doing out of the ship? Was it part of an evac, blown out of the exploding ship? or part of a tactic?
- Did any other ships try Geordi's deflector pulse trick?
- Did ships that could separate their saucers... separate them before going in?
- What about the families?
-Did the ships and the Borg cube have to move at impulse through the Wolf 359 system as the Enterprise and the Borg did/do in the Terran system? Could this have slowed up other ships that had arrived at the system from attacking together?
Elsewhere
- What was going on at Starfleet Command while the cube was coming? How about during the battle?
- Was there any sort of evacuation attempt from Earth? Where was all the civilian traffic?
- Just what kind of defensive structures and protocols does Starfleet have in place to deal with such threats to Earth? And what part did they play, if any, in the Borg attack? The Mars defense perimeter was pretty lame, and 40 starships, most quite old, wasn't much of a counter measure.
- We know Earth possess fixed defenses, where were they during all of this? Could a single Borg cube defeat the planetary defense network and shields?
- What was the civilian population doing during this? When the Cube broke through the Mars perimeter, was there rioting or what?
- What was Mars and the rest of the solar system doing during this? Evacuation perhaps?
- What were the fixed and largely defenseless Starfleet installations doing, like the shipyards?
- This was obviously a really big crisis. What were the rest of the Federation core worlds up to? How would they be reacting to all their defending starships suddenly being pulled away - and then toasted?
- What exactly is the Mars Defence Perimeter? Was it really just those three little ships, or did it incorporate static defenses?
- Would Starfleet have withheld information about the Borg cube being in Earth's orbit to prevent mass panick?
- WHY did no one attempt to ram the cube at warp speed? (Aside from the E-D at the end of BOBW...)
- Was the planet in lock-down?
- What did Spacedock do? How powerful is Spacedock really?
- What happened to the Federation and Starfleet command structure on Earth (Command, President, Council Chambers, Medical)?
Aftermath
- How did they get assimilated crewmembers back to the Delta Quad?
- Why did the "sleep" command Picard and Data threw into the collective cause the Borg vessel to explode? Regen cycles aside, I can't figure that one out.
- What, if anything, changed in the collective when the cube was destroyed?
- Is there some kind of memorial to Wolf 359?
- How propaganda laden is any taught history of Wolf 359?
- Is there a special day to commemorate Wolf 359?
- How highly was the enterprise crew decorated (if at all) for stopping the cube?
- What kind of wreckage was salvaged after the battle? anything?
- What did the explosion look like from planetside? Did Jaresh-Inyo (or who/whatever was president at the time ) make a really cool "this is the end of humanity" speech like Tricia O'Neil's president in the B5 "In The Beginning" movie?
- How exactly does Shelby think the fleet can be back up in a year at the end of BoBW?
Miscellaneous
- Isn't it great that personally, Mojo subscribes to the 'one ship survived' theory?
- Are there really 92 Jupiter outposts?
- More of an overall question: Is Starfleet/the Federation really so centered that it DEPENDS on the Sol system (fleetyards, command structure, Spacedock)?
- Is Annika Hansen related to Admiral J.B. Hansen?
I omitted a few due to overlap and a couple more that were answered already. If I missed any, feel free to pop 'em back in.
quote:- How long did Starfleet have to assemble its fleet?
That depends on when Starfleet started putting it together. If they started pulling ships in the second they realized they had a Borg cube running around, then they probably had several days. If they waited until the Borg had withstood the Enterprise's deflector-dish attack, I'd say less then a day.
Personally, I favor the first explanation. Starfleet just started gathering some ships in case it was what they feared. I don't think they neccessarily ordered the ships to gather at Wolf 359, or even ordered all forty to group together.
quote: Why was this fleet so small? And why was it made up of second-rate ships?
It makes a great deal of sense that the inner core worlds of the Federation are the best protected. You're not likely to see an Orion pirate operating. The Federation doesn't need their biggest, best attack ships near Earth -- they do need those ships on the frontier, or anywhere a Federation world is in striking distance of a hostile world.
It seems to me the only ships near Earth would mostly be for courier use or whatnot.
quote:Could the Borg cube have encountered other ships, Starfleet or not, along the way to Earth? What about other threat forces, like the Romulans? Or did they transwarp over that territory?
I was under the impression the cube was the same one encountered in Q-Who. IMO, the Borg cube just did some calculations, figured out where the Enterprise came from and set a course at maximum velocity. Perhaps it wasn't close enough to a transwarp corridor at the time, and perhaps the Borg only knew the trajectory, not any other point to pin down the location of the Federation.
Or, the Borg wanted to find out where Rudy Guiliani came from when he surprised them in Florida. They knew he was from up North, somewhere along I-95, but they didn't know WHERE, so they just set off on a road trip until they found him in New York. If that makes any sense whatsoever.
quote:Why was only one Cube sent in to sector 001 in the first place? I don't care who you are, or how powerful you are, sending one vessel to conquer an area is stupid.
Well, the Cube wasn't sent to conquor an area -- just a planet. Earth. If not for the 'sleep' command, it doesn't look like it would've had much trouble doing that, now does it?
And besides, the Borg don't think along the lines of others. Once their cube had adapted to Federation weaponry, it was pretty much invincible. I'm sure those two BoPs gave it some damage, but aside for that ...
quote:Where were the ships that participated stationed at exactly?
We probably will never know. My guess is that at least a few of them were used for courier or supply services.
quote:Where exactly is wolf 359 in relation to earth?
Although I don't know THAT, I do know Wolf 359 is a real star. If anyone would know, Jordan (Quatre Winner) would, I'm sure.
quote:Why did the battle take place? It boggles the mind that the invincible Borg would stop in the middle of nowhere, just because a puny little flock of starships asked it to. Why didn't the Cube simply proceed straight to Earth at warp speed? How does Starfleet force its enemies out of warp, often seemingly without firing a single shot, when in "Time to Stand" we see that the actual job of getting an uncooperative ship to drop down to impulse is a real toughie, requiring a prolonged exchange of fire?
Who knows? Perhaps the Borg thought that by having a human spokesman, the Federation commanders might be willing to listen to their arguement for a surrender. Its not like they were in a real hurry, anyhoo. Perhaps there were enough ships that the Borg wanted to get them out of the way before time came to assimilate Earth (when they might be more vulnerable). Remember, they'd stopped before to carve up a colony and the Lalo (I think that was the name). This wasn't exactly unexpected behavior.
quote:What ships were at Wolf 359, aside from the ones we already know of?
I don't know -- do you?
quote:Who were the captains of the ships there? How many Admirals could have been there? What are their stories?
I don't know, do you? I doubt there were any, besides Hanson, honestly.
quote:Where'd all the escape pods go?
If they weren't assimilated by the Borg, I'd say they were probably rescued by other Federation ships. Its a wonder that the Enterprise didn't pick any up, but the lifepod crews had probably set a course for the nearest Federation facility by that point, and were out of range for the Enterprise to do anything more then send a message saying "Glad you made it, gotta kill them Borg!"
quote:Were there Starfleet cadets at Wolf 359? What role could the Academy have played?
I would hope not -- but its very possible. I don't think Starfleet scrambled its training ships, but there could've been some cadets doing senior cruises on some of the ships there.
quote:Just how long did the battle last?
Not very long. At least, not long enough for the Enterprise to arrive and participate ... (although Riker and Hanson spoke as if it would be possible for the ship to arrive in the estimated time combat would last).
quote:Where was the rest of the Fleet when Sisko's USS Saratoga was attacking? Why were only five ships seen in the opening scenes? Did the Saratoga's attack represent the beginning of the battle, or some point later on?
I'm guessing the beginning of the battle. Perhaps it was a feint, or Hanson just wanted to see just how well defended the cube really was -- could it really take on five targets at once?
quote:What tactics did Starfleet try on the cube? Did they attempt anything hi-tech, or go for a traditional brawl of a battle?
Uh ... they tried the tactics that would best win!
quote:Why was the Excelsior-class starship blown apart within a few seconds, while it took several minutes for the Borg to take apart the Saratoga?
Perhaps the Borg percieved the ship to be a bigger threat then the Saratoga, and took it out first. It seemed like they just grabbed the Saratoga in a tractor beam until they could finish her off. Maybe they wanted new drones ... ?
quote:We know that some people were assimilated during the battle. How many were assimilated? How did the Borg rationalize the number and type of people assimilated? Were civilians assimilated too?[/quote[
No idea how many were assimilated. Why would the Borg want to rationalize it? Who cares -- new drones! The real question isn't 'were civilians assimilared' ... it's "why the fuck were civilians there in the first place?!"
[quote]How did they assimilate people if they were blowing up their ships?
Grabbed lifepods? They might've sliced parts of the ship away (like in Q-Who) and found people in airtight compartments in the cut sections.
quote:I want to know why an Oberth was present at the battle. was it a scout? was it picking up escape pods? was Starfleet really that desperate for ships?
Yes, Starfleet really was probably that desperate for ships!
quote:In regards to the 40 ships, were these all Federation ships? Did Admiral Hanson not say in The Best of Both Worlds that the Klingons were sending ships as well? (As I recall, he even said that the Feds had considered contacting the Romulans.)
Yes, Hanson said the Klingons were sending ships. Although we never found out on screen, I think we've learned that two Birds of Prey were there. It's also possible a larger fleet from the Empire was enroute, but unable to reach Wolf 359 in time.
quote:How did Picard help or not help as Locutus in the battle?[We see him observing the ships of his old time freinds getting blown to scrap one by one]
Locutus had no friends. He was probably able to tell the Borg the strengths and weakenesses of the various ships.
quote:Where were many of the other Trek series core characters at the time of Wolf 359? Some we know, others we don't. Sisko is obvious. Where was Harry Kim? (If that example is known, substitute somebody else.)
Harry Kim would probably be entering his first year at Starfleet Academy.
quote:Why didn't they hit the Borg cube with a genesis device if they were looking for a good weapon?
Probably because a) they don't build Genesis devices like they're ICBMs, b) the project is probably so classified no one remembers it, and c) how long does it TAKE to build a Genesis device? And d) do you REALLY want to explain the presense of a new planet?
quote:What was the shuttlecraft from the Liberator doing out of the ship? Was it part of an evac, blown out of the exploding ship? or part of a tactic?
Any of the above!
quote:Did any other ships try Geordi's deflector pulse trick?
I don't know ... do you?
quote:Did ships that could separate their saucers... separate them before going in?
One would hope they at least evacuated non-combatants!
quote:What about the families?
Obviously, some ships carried theirs in. Remember Sisko's wife?
posted
And answering my own question, it's my belief that the Saratoga was held in a tractor beam for so long because the Borg had selected it as the easier target for assimilation. I think the Borg would have stopped to assimilate samples of people and technology from several ships over the course of the battle, to expand their knowledge of the Federation by gathering pieces of different eras of ships and species.
Between the Excelsior-class ship and the Saratoga, the latter is arguably the weaker ship and probably more efficient to assimilate. So, while Sisko's going through his little drama, perhaps there were drones beaming aboard in Engineering to assimilate people, the computer core, etc. - just like they did in "Q Who?". The cutting beam could have been taking in samples too, as we never again saw the sucer of the ship.
Why was the (Oberth-class) USS Bonestell there? I think that due to her proximity to the Saratoga when we saw her, she could have been coming close to the Saratoga to rescue escape pods or something. We don't know what the armament of an Oberth-class ship is, but it's probably pretty puny (a BoP blew up the USS Grissom without any problems...). Puny enough that pressing one into active combat probably wouldn't make much sense. So, perhaps she was trying to help the Saratoga somehow. Alternatively, the battle could haave become so desperate in those few minuts that the Bonestell ould have been ordered in as a last resort.
posted
i imagine that the fleet put together several days ahead of the battle of wolf 359, and every ship in the area would have been sent. perhaps there were ships being repaired at Utopia Planitia, which would explain the tall ships like the nebulas and the yamaguchi. the others were probably couriers or similar, since the core federation planets aren't near any real threats.
wasn't this the time period where relations with the klingons was at it's best, and klingon ships could be found in federation space? in "a matter of honor" (i believe that is the one where riker becomes the first officer on a BOP in an officer exchange) the bird of prey was in federation space and nobody thought it was unusual (it's been a while since i saw the episode, but i don't think that the ship was there because of a special arrangement done ahead of time). due to this, any number of klingon ships could have been in the area.
i really hope that the Republic was not in the battle. remember, admiral hanson believed that the fleet would defeat the borg, so there is no reason to think they would be desperate enough to send an old relic.
i imagine that several ships firing torpedoes at you would be sufficient to drive you out of warp. as was said, the borg had no reason to hurry and could simply take their time destroying the fleet. another reason as to why the borg decided to play starfleet's game is that it was simply easier to destroy all of the ships in one place than to hunt them all down later.
posted
Well, we don't know who was commanding the majority of the ships at Wolf 359, much else the ships involved. As for where the ships came from, well it's either from the ship stationed to function near the Sol Sector, the ships that are at the fleet yards ans Spacedock, and whoever happend to be available. The lifeboats that were ejected could have headed towards a nearby Federation facility that's not in the Sol Sector. After all, that's where the Borg are going and who would want to meet up with the Borg in an escape pod? Some ASRV's could have been picked up by the cube, if the ship they came from were close enough. As for civilian traffic, I would imagine that it became light by the time the cube was at or near Wolf 359. And the Federation Council would have been removed from the planet along with the president.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
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posted
I think that Locutous was the reason the cube stopped to engage the fleet.
He was there to facilitate the assimilation of earth, so perhaps he thought that by destroying Starfleet's finest it would demoralize the people and they would put up less resistace.
He hoped to demonstrate that resistance WAS futile.
posted
"What was the exact strategy of the fed ships when the battle began? As the battle turned against them, what changed? (this goes into "what were their stories", but I'm talking specific things I would like to know in those tragic tales)"
I'm guessing Hansen started with classic battleline tactics, engaging the cube with all 40 ships in close formation or formations. When it became obvious that grouping together just made things easy for the Borg, he broke the Fleet down into smaller action groups in hopes of retaining enough firepower, per group, to make a difference, and at the same time spliting up the Borg's targeting. Eventually, enough ships were destroyed that command and control broke down, and it became every ship for themselves.
"Did any other ships try Geordi's deflector pulse trick?"
It took Geordi quite sometime to prepare that trick, and he had the backing of a GCS's warp core and main deflector dish. I doubt any other ships at Wolf 359, with maybe except for the Nebula, could have imitated what the Enterprise did.
"Did ships that could separate their saucers... separate them before going in?"
I hope not, there weren't any class present that could have separated their saucers there anyways, IIRC. Plus, a ship with a separated saucer usually suffers a major handicap in firepower (all the phasers in the saucer are gone).
"What about the families?"
Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead Dead...
"Did the ships and the Borg cube have to move at impulse through the Wolf 359 system as the Enterprise and the Borg did/do in the Terran system? Could this have slowed up other ships that had arrived at the system from attacking together?"
Anyone actually did the math of how long it'd take to cross Sol at impulse power?
"What was going on at Starfleet Command while the cube was coming? How about during the battle?"
Panicking. Kissing their butts goodbye.
Or.
Panicking. Busy not learning to station more ships in Sol in the future.
Reminds one of the time when those whale-lovers came, doesn't it?
"Was there any sort of evacuation attempt from Earth? Where was all the civilian traffic?"
We didn't get to see that much of Sol, they could very well be simply off camera. As for evacuation... There are something like 10 billion people on Earth...
"Just what kind of defensive structures and protocols does Starfleet have in place to deal with such threats to Earth? And what part did they play, if any, in the Borg attack? The Mars defense perimeter was pretty lame, and 40 starships, most quite old, wasn't much of a counter measure."
Not much, if history has taught us anything. There are suppose to be orbital defense, as shown on some panel somewhere in ST:IV, and planetary defense centers on Earth (DS9, Paradise lost, someone check the script for exact wording). Does the planetary shield covers only populated areas or the entire planet? And we don't know if the Borg was in range of the OWPs either.
And yeah, the MDP is pretty lame. They should have put me in charge of setting up the defenses of Sol.
"We know Earth possess fixed defenses, where were they during all of this? Could a single Borg cube defeat the planetary defense network and shields?"
See above. We would assume that once the Borg assimilated a type of weapon, the quantity which you throw at it becomes meaningless.
"What was the civilian population doing during this? When the Cube broke through the Mars perimeter, was there rioting or what?"
Panicking. Kissing their butts goodbye.
"What was Mars and the rest of the solar system doing during this? Evacuation perhaps?"
I would think that by this time all habitable planets in the Sol system contained so many people that exacuating any meaningful portion of them becomes unthinkable and rediculous.
"What were the fixed and largely defenseless Starfleet installations doing, like the shipyards?"
Waiting their turn to become junction C-385R of Cube 2083753, and so on.
"This was obviously a really big crisis. What were the rest of the Federation core worlds up to? How would they be reacting to all their defending starships suddenly being pulled away - and then toasted?"
I pray to God that those 40 ships were the only ones avaliable to defend Earth and only Earth, not the entire Federation core sectors. That'd just be sick. Maybe the help in three days was ships coming from those other systems, real, bigger, more ships.
"What exactly is the Mars Defence Perimeter? Was it really just those three little ships, or did it incorporate static defenses?"
Only thing mentioned was those robotic attack drones. I think they might have been over-sized missiles, which might have explained why they didn't fire and why they're robotic. The only reason I could think to explain why there were so few of them is that they each pack a huge punch, and/or they're spread out so widely to cover all possible approaches to Earth through Mars's orbit around the sun (remember, Mars is moving, so's Earth, so it'd be pretty stupid if MDP can only cover Earth when the planets are lined up just right) that only a few can respond in time. By the time more had arrived, the Borg had broken past the line of defense.
"Would Starfleet have withheld information about the Borg cube being in Earth's orbit to prevent mass panick?"
"This just in: the Borg has broken past our defenses AND IS COMING RIGHT AT US!!!"
Mass praying ensues, even though Federationites are a bunch of godless commies.
"WHY did no one attempt to ram the cube at warp speed? (Aside from the E-D at the end of BOBW...)"
Why didn't Klingon BoPs ram Jem'Hadar battlecruisers wholesale during the Dominion War? Why didn't the Jem'Hadar attack ships ram every Allied ships larger than itself during the War? I don't think that most rational races regard their ships as expendable projectiles, usually. Expandable, sure, but not to be just going around ramming other ships. It's just the way the crew thinks. They have weapons, they shoot. If they lose weapons, they might ram, but usually by then it's too late, especially with the Borg and their love of tractor beams. Personally, I see most Starfleet captains as the type to turn tail and run, hoping to fight again later. This doesn't work with the Borg.
"What did Spacedock do? How powerful is Spacedock really?"
Pretty damn powerful, one would think and hope.
"What happened to the Federation and Starfleet command structure on Earth (Command, President, Council Chambers, Medical)?"
High-tailed it outta Sol, probably.
"How did they get assimilated crewmembers back to the Delta Quad?"
Doraemon's anywhere door, maybe? Something like the Iconian gateway, but on a smaller scale, perhaps. Or maybe just your typical idiotic VOY writers at work.
"Why did the "sleep" command Picard and Data threw into the collective cause the Borg vessel to explode? Regen cycles aside, I can't figure that one out."
Probably the Borg realized what was going on, but was too late to stop it. So they blew themselves up instead of being captured.
"What, if anything, changed in the collective when the cube was destroyed?"
The Federation became slightly more annoying.
"Is there some kind of memorial to Wolf 359?"
A beacon of some sort, perhaps. Maybe a small station/museum.
"How propaganda laden is any taught history of Wolf 359?"
We never hear anything... But it was probably protrayed as a great victory in the face of total disaster. They sure as hell didn't learn anything from it.
"Is there a special day to commemorate Wolf 359?"
A day to commemorate the most lopsided battle in Starfleet history? Sure, why not? Kids get a day off from school.
"How highly was the enterprise crew decorated (if at all) for stopping the cube?"
They're the flagship of Starfleet. It's expected of them.
"What kind of wreckage was salvaged after the battle? anything?"
Nothing was mentioned about that particular cube. I hope Starfleet didn't go back and salvage the Fleet at Wolf 359 just so they can kitbash the wreckage.
"What did the explosion look like from planetside? Did Jaresh-Inyo (or who/whatever was president at the time ) make a really cool "this is the end of humanity" speech like Tricia O'Neil's president in the B5 "In The Beginning" movie?"
Well, like a second sun or a night time sun, of course, depending on your timezone. Humanity was pretty wide spread by then, so I don't think it would have been the end of humanity as is.
"How exactly does Shelby think the fleet can be back up in a year at the end of BoBW?"
Which Fleet? I don't think, hope she didn't, mean Starfleet. Maybe the Fleet assigned to defend Sector 001.
"Isn't it great that personally, Mojo subscribes to the 'one ship survived' theory?"
Yeah, hooray for Mojo. Not like I can find any of his books here in bloody Canada anyways. Well-stocked Chapters and Indigo my furry yellow electric tailed butt.
"Are there really 92 Jupiter outposts?"
It's a big planet. Here's the real kicker, are all 92 outposts made up of old Ambassaor saucers? How many decommed Ambassador would that have taken?
"More of an overall question: Is Starfleet/the Federation really so centered that it DEPENDS on the Sol system (fleetyards, command structure, Spacedock)?"
Earth is very much the center of the Federation, even on just a symbolic level. Utopia Planetia is probably the most extensive yards of Federation, and would probably be a devistating loss. The orbital facilities around Earth is also numerous and important. There's also a lot of people in Sol.
That took a while.
[ January 16, 2002: Message edited by: David Templar ]
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posted
1.)The three "ships" of the Mars DP look alot like tactical missles[same as the cardy one]to me.
I imagine they would be quite effective at neutralizing enemy fleets attacking Mars.
But Locutus may have pointed out the weakpoints in their shields and therefor the cube killed each one of them with only one shot.
2.)This is also why I think "ramming" the cube would not work. Some blurry moment during the battle, a starfleet ship[heavily dammaged, ala Defiant] may have chosen to ramm the cube. Locutus needn't even have to inform the Borg collective of this imminent threat[many species must have tried it]. So the borg dealt with it like how it has always dealt with it, blow it up before it can impact or hold it off with a tractor beam.
3.)Many of the starships gathered at wolf 359 probably were not the best, but some did seem rather armed for tactical missions. The Saratoga had those two "gun cannons" mounted to her sides. Though they may be actualy sensers, many sites list them as phaser turrets.
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Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
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posted
quote:Originally posted by TheF0rce: Though they may be actualy sensers, many sites list them as phaser turrets.
Extra points for being one of the few people to spell "turrets" correctly (there's no "n," folks!)...but loss of said points for "sensers."
Move along.
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OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
SHIT! Lost my whole fucking post! AAARGH!!
-How long did Starfleet have to assemble its fleet?
Twenty four hours at the most.
-Why was this fleet so small? And why was it made up of second-rate ships?
There were many first rate ships there; At least one Nebula, Ambassadors, Excelsiors, Mirandas, New Orleans, Cheyennes. The others were likely prototypes and other ships hanging around Sol for whatever reason. If you subscribe to the small Starfleet theory, then 40 ships is not an unreasonable number. Perhaps the number of ships wasn't limited by available hulls, but availabe personnel. Flying a starhip is a rather complicated thing to do, and there were probably only so many people who could haul mothballed hulks out there and fight with them.
-DS9 "The Valiant" mentioned the old starship USS Republic (used as an Academy training ship), which presumably hadn't left the solar system in fifty years (as of 2374). This was presumably an attempt to reconcile Kirk's being a Lieutenant on the Republic while still at the academy. Also, the Republic was presumably an old Constitution (NCC-1371) class ship. In any case, could the old girl have had something to do (or not to do) with Wolf 359?
I believe the Republic is the same as Kirk's. If the Taliban armada were to suddenly appear sailing for New York, even if iminent destruction were believed, then I don't think they would haul out the USS Constitution. And as stated above, if there was a limited number of people, they would've gone to more viable ships before they went to the Republic.
-Could the Borg cube have encountered other ships, Starfleet or not, along the way to Earth? What about other threat forces, like the Romulans? Or did they transwarp over that territory?
Possibly. The Borg probably told them to stay out of their way. And they probably agreed.
-Why was only one Cube sent in to sector 001 in the first place? I don't care who you are, or how powerful you are, sending one vessel to conquer an area is stupid.
Simple risk assesment. And they were pretty on the mark, actually. Sending one cube to conquer a quadrant is stupid, but sending the same cube to establish a base and nexus of resources is not so stupid.
-Where were the ships that participated stationed at exactly?
Sector 001 and adjacent. Probably not enough time to get ships from further away.
-Where exactly is wolf 359 in relation to earth?
Pretty close as far as I know. Somebody pull up a real star chart.
-Why did the battle take place? It boggles the mind that the invincible Borg would stop in the middle of nowhere, just because a puny little flock of starships asked it to. Why didn't the Cube simply proceed straight to Earth at warp speed? How does Starfleet force its enemies out of warp, often seemingly without firing a single shot, when in "Time to Stand" we see that the actual job of getting an uncooperative ship to drop down to impulse is a real toughie, requiring a prolonged exchange of fire?
Starfleet got in their way. Warping is still moving in a linear direction. If something blocks your path, you have to move around it. Or some commandos beamed aboard and took out enough of those node things to force it to impulse.
-What ships were at Wolf 359, aside from the ones we already know of?
40. The rest is speculation.
-Who were the captains of the ships there? How many Admirals could have been there? What are their stories?
Again, speculation. An anthology could be written about these brave souls' last hours. Three admirals, maybe? How many admirals are in Starfleet?
-Just how long did the battle last?
Several hours. I picture it as a running battle. Maybe it started at Wolf 359, or the majority of it took place at Wolf 359.
-Where was the rest of the Fleet when Sisko's USS Saratoga was attacking? Why were only five ships seen in the opening scenes? Did the Saratoga's attack represent the beginning of the battle, or some point later on?
Again, running battle. The very first scene of Emmissary implies pretty heavily that it was the beginning of the battle with Locutus' default speech and whatnot.
-What tactics did Starfleet try on the cube? Did they attempt anything hi-tech, or go for a traditional brawl of a battle?
Again, Emmissary shows the standard; phasers, torpedoes, evasive action, repeat. Maybe a couple of cunning souls tried some aces up their sleeves, but mostly it was traditional brawl. Maybe a couple ram attempts.
-Why was the Excelsior-class starship blown apart within a few seconds, while it took several minutes for the Borg to take apart the Saratoga?
Because the Excelsior was a higher threat. The Borg could only expend only so much energy at one time. While taking care of the higher threat, it holds the Saratoga w/ a tractor beam and some spare energy until it could blow up the ship properly. Or it be they wanted to assimilate people, information, and equipment from a ship that would require less effort to do so.
-We know that some people were assimilated during the battle. How many were assimilated? How did the Borg rationalize the number and type of people assimilated? Were civilians assimilated too?
A few dozen? A hundred? Oppurtunity. A ship in a tractor beam or a listing, barely living hulk offers the oppurtunity. Why not exploit it?
-How did they assimilate people if they were blowing up their ships?
Answered.
-I want to know why an Oberth was present at the battle. was it a scout? was it picking up escape pods? was Starfleet really that desperate for ships?
Two phasers are better than one.
-In regards to the 40 ships, were these all Federation ships? Did Admiral Hanson not say in The Best of Both Worlds that the Klingons were sending ships as well? (As I recall, he even said that the Feds had considered contacting the Romulans.)
I consider the 40 number all Feds. Maybe there were like 7 Klingon ships? For a magic total number.
-How did Picard help or not help as Locutus in the battle?[We see him observing the ships of his old time freinds getting blown to scrap one by one]
Knowledge is power.
-What was the exact strategy of the fed ships when the battle began? As the battle turned against them, what changed? (this goes into "what were their stories", but I'm talking specific things I would like to know in those tragic tales)
Phasers, torpedoes, evasive, repeat. Throw in a remodulation to mix things up a bit. Again, an anthology on the specifics.
-Where were many of the other Trek series core characters at the time of Wolf 359? Some we know, others we don't. Sisko is obvious. Where was Harry Kim? (If that example is known, substitute somebody else.)
More specific speculation. Kim would've been in the Academy right? He was most likely sucking his thumb kissing his ass goodbye.
-Why didn't they hit the Borg cube with a genesis device if they were looking for a good weapon?
Because the only one ever built was detonated 80 years before?
-What was the shuttlecraft from the Liberator doing out of the ship? Was it part of an evac, blown out of the exploding ship? or part of a tactic?
Evacuation probably. Or simply blown away from an explosive decompression.
-Did any other ships try Geordi's deflector pulse trick?
Very few other ships had the power to do it. And if they did, it sure as hell didn't work. If they even knew about it, which I doubt.
-Did ships that could separate their saucers... separate them before going in?
I've tried this in Armada II, with mixed results. Since there were no other Galaxies, no ship could probably reintegrate. Even the proto-Neb, if it could seperate, probably couldn't reintegrate. So they probably stayed together. For the kids.
-What about the families?
Tragic. Maybe a few were evacuated. Jennifer and Jake weren't though.
-Did the ships and the Borg cube have to move at impulse through the Wolf 359 system as the Enterprise and the Borg did/do in the Terran system? Could this have slowed up other ships that had arrived at the system from attacking together?
Slowing to impulse is most likely done for the simple reason of not overshooting your target. You don't do 60 right up to you're garage door.
-What was going on at Starfleet Command while the cube was coming? How about during the battle?
Kissing their asses goodbye.
-Was there any sort of evacuation attempt from Earth? Where was all the civilian traffic?
Sure. I'd run. We just didn't see it.
-Just what kind of defensive structures and protocols does Starfleet have in place to deal with such threats to Earth? And what part did they play, if any, in the Borg attack? The Mars defense perimeter was pretty lame, and 40 starships, most quite old, wasn't much of a counter measure.
40 ships is pretty impressive. Isn't it the most we've ever heard or seen assembled in one location? And don't diss Mars! Remember whatever we saw, was probably just a small slice of what really happened. Or it picked the weakest approach vector. Path of least resistance.
-We know Earth possess fixed defenses, where were they during all of this? Could a single Borg cube defeat the planetary defense network and shields?
On Earth? Apparently.
-What was the civilian population doing during this? When the Cube broke through the Mars perimeter, was there rioting or what?
Kissing their asses goodbye. 24th century humans are enlightened, I'd like to think they were dealing with it in a more rational way.
-What was Mars and the rest of the solar system doing during this? Evacuation perhaps?
This is my question isn't it? I think evacuation.
-What were the fixed and largely defenseless Starfleet installations doing, like the shipyards?
Kissing their asses goodbye.
-This was obviously a really big crisis. What were the rest of the Federation core worlds up to? How would they be reacting to all their defending starships suddenly being pulled away - and then toasted?
Kissing their asses goodbye.
-What exactly is the Mars Defence Perimeter? Was it really just those three little ships, or did it incorporate static defenses?
Mars Defense Perimeter. Remember, we likely only saw a sliver of the actual action. The Mars Defense Perimeter was most likely more substantial.
-Would Starfleet have withheld information about the Borg cube being in Earth's orbit to prevent mass panick?
No. Earth is a Utopia. Witholding of information is the worst form of oppression. Starfleet/Federation doesn't intentionally keep people from knowing they are about to die.
-WHY did no one attempt to ram the cube at warp speed? (Aside from the E-D at the end of BOBW...)
They did. They failed, like the E-D.
-Was the planet in lock-down?
No, they'd let people run. They probably knew the El-Aurians situation by that time and considered that worst case scenario.
-What did Spacedock do? How powerful is Spacedock really?
Kiss its ass goodbye? Not powerful enough to fend off a cube.
-What happened to the Federation and Starfleet command structure on Earth (Command, President, Council Chambers, Medical)?
They were kissing their asses goodbye.
-How did they get assimilated crewmembers back to the Delta Quad?
The Shatner Transwarp Deluxe Transporter
-Why did the "sleep" command Picard and Data threw into the collective cause the Borg vessel to explode? Regen cycles aside, I can't figure that one out.
What are Regen cycles? A feedback loop. The Borg didn't know what hit them. But they adapted for the next time. The Borg most likely go by the "fool me once..." philosophy. There are only so many tricks out there.
-What, if anything, changed in the collective when the cube was destroyed?
Not much. The Collective is vast. The Feds still weren't probably assigned a very high threat rating. Who knows why they did the second incursion the way they did.
-Is there some kind of memorial to Wolf 359?
Absolutely. Bigger than Pearl Harbor, bigger than the future WTC memorial, bigger than anything ever done before. Mojo - a great idea for Unseen Frontier. I'm sure you've already thought of it.
-How propaganda laden is any taught history of Wolf 359?
I would hope that a scientific utopia could maintain some semblence of objectivity. But what sort of propoganda would you need to spin it in to some sort of tragic event? It's pretty fucking tragic as is.
-Is there a special day to commemorate Wolf 359?
I would hope so.
-How highly was the enterprise crew decorated (if at all) for stopping the cube?
Federal Medals of Honor? What was the nature of the E-nil's decorations for their multiple Earth-saves?
-What kind of wreckage was salvaged after the battle? anything?
I would think it would be analagous to the retrieval of debris from Ground Zero. Memorial pieces, and little else.
-What did the explosion look like from planetside? Did Jaresh-Inyo (or who/whatever was president at the time ) make a really cool "this is the end of humanity" speech like Tricia O'Neil's president in the B5 "In The Beginning" movie?
Like the destruction of the mothership from ID4. I think he/she/it more likely made a Morgan Freeman "Life will go on" speech from Deep Impact.
-How exactly does Shelby think the fleet can be back up in a year at the end of BoBW?
The defense fleet. The homefleet stationed in and around Sector 001. Considering some of these were failed but still flyable prototypes, they wouldn't have any real bearing on the deployed fleet anyway.
-Isn't it great that personally, Mojo subscribes to the 'one ship survived' theory?
Absolutely fucking awesome. You rock, Mojo!
-Are there really 92 Jupiter outposts?
No. There's no evidence that outposts/stations are numbered sequentially. And its not as crazy as it sounds for that not to be the case. Happens all the time in real life.
-More of an overall question: Is Starfleet/the Federation really so centered that it DEPENDS on the Sol system (fleetyards, command structure, Spacedock)?
If the east coast fell, we'd be fucked. Even with LA, SF, PH, and the whole west coast and everything else stationed around the world, we'd be done. Take out the absolute center, the absolute capital of any organization, and it falls.
-Is Annika Hansen related to Admiral J.B. Hansen?
Could be. Maybe not. Who cares? A pretty cheap tie in regardless.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
Registered: Jun 2001
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Why did the cube fly by Mars anyway? What are the chances that at that exact point, Saturn, Mars and Earth were on a direct line with each other?
"40 ships is pretty impressive. Isn't it the most we've ever heard or seen assembled in one location?"
No. 150+ ships at the end of "Call To Arms" (some Klingon, admitadley. And I can't remember where I heard this figure from. Was that the amount actually shown on-screen?)
And there was 600-odd Federation-only ships in "Sacrifice of Angels", and probably similar numbers on "What you Leave Behind".
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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