posted
FC would certainly seem to imply that there was a certain degree of space based combat in WWIII; the only surprise when the borg start firing is that it's been so long since the last attack.
Out of interest, exactly what degree of space combat do people think is reasonable for WWIII: just orbital weapons platforms or were there more mobile units as well, as I think is stated in some non-canon stuff?
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posted
Shots comming out of the sky COULD have been taken as missiles fired from high altitude airplanes...
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posted
Well, there supposedly were (or could have been) orbital nuke platforms in Trek's late 1960s. And there were DY ships in the late 90s. So I wouldn't be surprised if there actually were limited space battles. I could certainly see ECON pointing a Very Big Laser at an allied moonbase or something. Or at least taking out orbital sattelites and/or stations. But all this could have happened only in the early years of the war, before the apparent total atomic mayhem broke out.
posted
I figure that the weapons from First Contact were orbital missle/projectile launchers and perhaps very rudimentary particle weapons. Nothing as far as ship combat up there. If anything, air launched anti-satellite missiles and that sort of thing.
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quote:Out of interest, exactly what degree of space combat do people think is reasonable for WWIII: just orbital weapons platforms or were there more mobile units as well, as I think is stated in some non-canon stuff?
Well I have my own set of ideas about that. The way I see it, WWIII started in space. I had the idea that it was largly fought over what was left of earth's resouces, mainly fossil fuels. When these ran dry I imagine there would have been a new space race between the new superpowers and global corperations, in which the goal was to stake a claim on the rich off world mineral deposites and perhaps even a petrolium deposite discovered on Mars and/or Europa. Eventually things get desperate and fights break out over just who gets the choice goodies. This might have lead to acts of sabotage and terrorism back on Earth as everyone tries to undermine their competitors until inevitably outright nuclear war breaks out.
This is the best reason I can think of why mid-21st century earth would have such a large standing fleet of robust spaceships. No dedicated warships, but I imagine that most large freighters, tankers and mining vessels would be armed against possible acts of piracy.
Also remember that war is always an effective way of advancing technology and a space war is precisely what is needed to developed things like cold fusion, M/AM reactors, inertial dampeners, cryogenics (I assume Khan was just way ahead of his time) and of course weapons systems like effective lasers, mass-drivers/rail guns and primitive particle emitters.
quote:Shots comming out of the sky COULD have been taken as missiles fired from high altitude airplanes...
Airplanes at high altitudes don't tend to reflect so much light in the night sky (anyone with experience in astronomy will know the difference between a passing satellite and a passing airplane - planes are much harder to see save for their strobes), fire missiles sideways instead of forwards to say nothing about just how fast they'd have to be travelling to reach the surface so fast.
What we saw was consistant with exactly what it was; an orbiting satelite firing highly accelerated projectiles at the surface.
posted
About pre WWIII Earth and it's space capabilities, I've said a long time ago here, somewhere that I think Earth has at least travelled to Alpha Centuri at sublight speeds - hence Zephram Cochrane being from there... and he got trapped on Earth during WWIII.
What year was the Mars colinisation?
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posted
Given the time it takes to travel between earth and A-Cent at even half the speed of light, (8.79 years) I think it would probably take several centuries to establish any sort of generational presence in that system, to say nothing of the relitivistic effects of traveling at that speed.
Just for starter we know that the earliest sucessful trip to A-Cent can be no earlier than 2037 since that is the launch date of the Charybdis the third (or 2nd?) failed attempt at leaving our own system. Not enought time to travel there, come back, (17.58 year round trip) return with settlers, (another 8.79 yrs) raise children and travel back to earth in time for WWIII. Assuming that the Jacob, the very next ship to go out after the Charybdis (remembering that the Charybdis's mission was only to get out into the heliopause, not visit Alpha Centauri) left earth around 2040 and the subsequent visits followed the pattern I just described. Then if my math is correct then cochrane makes it back to Earth in 2075 aged 8 years old. Not counting the time dialation of course. (my calculator isn't that clever) To sum it up in three words, not bloody likely.
More likely that Cochrane settled on A-Cent later on with the first wave of settlers from Earth using his Warp Drive and from there went off into deep space.
posted
And "Twilight" (ENT) recently said AC was in fact an Earth colony. This would mean that it must have been colonized before 2119, since at that time, Cochrane supposedly lived there. You'd have to ignore the Terra Nova colony as being the first extrasolar one (that's the second time that claim is proven to be utter nonsense).
posted
Why would pre-2119 establishing of Alpha Centauri conflict in any way with the establishing of Terra Nova more than 70 years prior to 2151? There's no timeline problem there.
The problem only lies in the definition of "inhabitable": the nearby AC must have been considered "uninhabitable" when the more distant TN was founded, and then something must have changed. Or then AC remains "uninhabitable", but is colonized nevertheless.
In any case, ENT has given us *some* new data. It is now highly unlikely for AC to have been a haven of transplanted Earth humans, like fanon often suggests. Otherwise, the transplanted society in "North Star" wouldn't have come as such a shock to our heroes.
quote:Originally posted by Reverend: What we saw was consistant with exactly what it was; an orbiting satelite firing highly accelerated projectiles at the surface.
Saying that your opinion is correct does not actually make it so.
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posted
I would imagine pretty much the same. Different interior layout... ship's stores and science labs instead of dormitories. Perhaps some armor plating over those windows out front. A few missile launchers and pulse weapon emplacements. Ultimately, however, the same hull.
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quote:Saying that your opinion is correct does not actually make it so.
I like to think that I speak from a position of some experience. While of course I've never seen a satellite fire projectiles at the surface (and I hope I never do) because known one has. However, I live and have lived on a very active military training area for several decades and I've probably seen just about every type of aircraft you care to name, buzzing my house on a daily basis. I've seen them landing, taking off, at night, in broad daylight, flying at high altitudes and coming unnervingly close to swiping my TV antenna off the top of my roof. I've also had a little background in amateur astronomy and I can tell you that there is no mistaking a passing satellite for an aircraft. For a start satellites are very bright, very easy to spot and go like stink in the night. While your average aircraft is just a slow moving, very dark silhouette which you probably wouldn't see at all if it weren't for the red beacons and flashing strobes. Even then you almost always hear them long before you can see them.
As for the missiles, my house is also just a few miles away from a large artillery range and have the shaky windows to prove it. Again I've seen all sorts of ordinance fired off, shells, missiles, mortars etc. and I have some sense at just how fast these things can go. Also the concept of sideways firing missiles on an air plane is unheard of in my experience and I imagine that such a thing would be a little destabilizing which is probably why all the craft that I'm aware of tend to fire along their flight path. If that is not the case then I stand corrected, it's just speculation on my part. And Liam, at no point did I decree my opinion to be unquestionable, I merely expressed that opinion. If you don't agree then you're more than welcome to offer any counter arguments that you might have.
posted
Yikes! Sideways firing missiles? Not only would the mounting of such a thing really screw up the aerodynamics, the launching of such a thing at speed would throw the weapon off course as it passed through the plane's "wake."
Good grief... the only way that MIGHT work is if you fired it from a helicopter or at best a low powered propeller plane. Certainly not a turboprop or jet propelled airplane.
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