"Let's not use this weapon for tactical advantage in case some god like aliens swoop in at the end of the book to save us".
Hartzilla2007, using the thalaron weapon would have saved BILLLIONS of lives in the end. These BILLIONS died. How is that "everything working out"?
They didn't get around to consider using the damned thing until after the Borg were on their way to the nebula so using it wouldn't have saved those that had ALREDAY DIED AT THAT POINT, plus this al depends on the Borg never having encountered Thalaron radiation before.
Seven 'got around' to using the thalaron weapon even before the borg came on mass - and, since then, they didn't even use the weapon when the borg were burning everything in their path, killing BILLIONS - because of that so-called 'moral' argument. I'll tell you again - NOT using the weapon condemned BILLIONS to death, Hartzilla2007!
So I take it the Federation should have killed the Founders too, then used the nanoprobe weapons to take out Species 8472, and finally glased the members of the Typhon Pact just incase they turn out to be a major threat and maybe to keep the rest of the Alpha Qudrant residents in line. I mean if you're going to shit on everything your civilization is founded on why only get rid of one enemy when you can go and crush them all.
Says that guy who thinks killing the Founders was wrong, but killing an army of brain wahsed slaves is the greatest thin ever without getting the hypocrisy of it. Any way to bring this thread back to it's actual topic Why the hell would Stafleet need a wargame to test a landable saucer in Rouge Saucer and why would an environmental terrorist organization unleash a virus weapon that they plan to cure to teach a lesson but not have a cure for in Avenger?
What most I did not like about Destiny, was Picard's officers complaining about not being able to go back exploring. That's more important than saving your civilization.
Unlike you, I argumented WHY it's wrong to genocide the Founders, not simply presented straw-man arguments, Hartzilla2007: http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=114440&page=15 In short, they are not combatants - killing them won't save a single life. You want to kill them in order to punish them for conquering the Alpha/Beta Quadrants. And you think it just. I must have missed the parts of the criminal codes that present GENOCIDE as a just punishment. Killing a genocidal army that kills BILLIONS every hour, on the other hand, is pure self-defence, Hartzilla2007.
Hello remeber the part about them being a brainwashed slave army. I guess the Feds should kill all the Borg babies while they're at it.
And you remember to read my posts: "Who were an enemy army killing BILLIONS of federation citizens each hour. Who were, practically, impossible to save. If, under these conditions, Picard&co are not willing to kill in self-defense, if they have such an uncompromisingly do-not-kill-in-any-situation morals, they are not fit to serve in Starfleet, who is sworn to defend the Federation and the lives of its citizens. The Jem'hadar were also slaves to their genetic conditioning, correct? By your argument, Starfleet had no right to kill in self defense a single Jem'hadar - after all, they had no choice. The Federation should have surrendered, let Weyoun exterminate Earth (as he was planning) and turn all Alpha/Beta quadrant civilizations into slaves. Yes?"
You're forgetting how the story actually unfolded. They already did have a new plan -- Hernandez's plan to let the Caeliar assimilate the Borg. By resisting that plan in favor of the thalaron weapon, Picard delayed the implementation of the plan that ultimately worked. So you've got it completely backward. If they'd done as you suggest, if they'd pursued the thalaron project to its conclusion instead of acting on Hernandez's plan that was already on the table, it would've taken them longer to defeat the Borg and far more lives would've been lost.
Actually, when they decided against using the thalaran weapon, the Borg werent killing anyone, they were travelling on mass back to the Azure Nebula because they had detected the Omega molecule. The heroes needed a plan to stop the borg once they arrived back there. The point was made that none of the borg drones were responsbile for their actions, they were basically souls trapped in automated bodies, forced to watch the atrocities, and the heroes decided they would not cross the line and use a weapon against them that would be in effect mass murder of slaves. They wanted a plan that not only stopped the Borg but saved the enslaved Borg drones. And you know, by choosing not to follow the thalaran weapon plan and going with a plan that had the chance to help the drones, they ended up saving all the drones that you called "practically impossible to save". Beyond that, you talk about the borg killing billions so no mercy should be applied and using the thalaran weapon would slow them down. Surely that is a strange point of view? the thalaran weapon would not have destroyed the entire borg fleet, there were more than four thousand ships there, no way is the thalaran weapon destroying the entire amount before the adapated. So considering that, you use the weapon, destroy a few hundred borg ships, and yet are still left with thousands, who then destroy you, assimilate the OMG (omega molecule generator) and go back and eradicte the remaining Federation and allied worlds. so not only have you used a horrific weapon, banned by all major powers because of its horrificness, you've crossed the moral line for nothing as you havent saved the federation. The jem'hadar arent slaves in the way the borg drones are, so your point isnt really valid. the jem'hadar are genetically programmed to want to kill for the Founders. the borg drones are enslaved helplessly in their body and forced to watch what occurs by their actions which they have no control over. And even more, the Federation wouldnt be happy with a plan that wiped out the Jem'Hadar as a species anyway, regardles sof if it offered a tactical advantage, take a look at the reactions of right thinking Federation officers at the revelation that it was Section 31 who engineered the attempted genocide of the Founders.
Except for Picard, Hugh, Hugh's Borg buddies from the Desent, the former drones Voyager met next to the dead cube, Seven, the Unimatrix Zero Rebels, and the Borg kids. Yeah totally not saveable. Well considering Starfleet Command didn't do it either I guess you don't know shit about Stafleet. Except the Jem' Hadar were born that way and were following each following orders out of loyalty to what they considered their gods and had to ability to go against that see the episode of DS9 where the crew of the Defiant had to work with the Dominion to to stop a group of rouge Jem' Hadar. The Borg on the other hand were regular people until they were assimilated and striped of their free will in a process that is like mental rape and made them apart of the slave army. But putting that aside your plan is shit because it would have been a one shot only destroyed the ships that were close enough to hit AND THE BORG WOULD COME BACK IN A CENTURY OR TWO which would mean the Feds selling out their morals for a temporary solution, where as what they did got rid of the fleet AND THE REST OF THE BORG, ended the Borg threat FOREVER as in no more Borg as in ex-Borgo, and they didn't have to sell out their morals to do it. Plus the thalaron weapon wouldn't have worked if the Borg had ever been exposed to one before.
Seven realized the thalaron weapon's potential since before the borg arrived en masse. Since then, they didn't even use the weapon when the borg were burning everything in their path, killing BILLIONS - because of that so-called 'moral' argument. And Geordi modifying the deflector wouldn't have delayed the caeliar plan at all. It would have been a welcome back-up plan. It could even have been the main plan, if they decided NOT to go along with Hernandez's insanely dangerous plan. Consider - the borg assimilated thousands of species, some of them more advanced technologically then themselves; they excelled at assimilation. And they were TRILLIONS, as opposed to only thousands of Caeliar. The Caeliar were extremely arrogant in being so sure of their superiority on this domain. What if the borg managed to assimilate the Caeliar? They would have sterilized the Alpha/Beta Quadrants, assimilated the Milky Way and the neighbouring galaxies and would have kept them like this for EONS! A GIGANTIC risk!
At the point in the story that Geordi and Picard were arguing about the thalaron weapon, it has been pointed out that there was already a better plan on the table (the Caeliar freeing the drones from the Collective mind). If the weapon were able to save a planet or two from the Borg in the short term earlier in the conflict, should it have been used then? I'm no expert on made-up radiation, but it seems that killing drones with the thalaron weapon is not that different from killing them with transphasic or quantum torpedoes.
MNM The thalaron weapon "would have saved BILLIONS OF LIVES, it would have gained time for Starfleet to come up with a new plan. Not using it condemned, in the end, BILLIONS of federation - and not only - citizens to death. The borg would not have managed to kill them until the Caelliar took pity on the Federation." MMM, destroying a hundred of borg cubes would have saved their future victims - BILLIONS. "The jem'hadar arent slaves in the way the borg drones are" On the contraty, MMM - the Jem'hadar are genetically conditioned to follow the founders' orders eg kill. The have no choice in the matter! The borg are technologically conditioned to to the same thing. All very similar. If your argument is that starfleet had no right to kill drones, then your argument is theat starfleet had no right to kill Jem'hadar. Hartzilla2007 It's theoretically possible to retrieve drones. Practically, it's impossible. When starfleet can save billions of drones then you can claim otherwise. When the borg is NOT killing BILLIONS, you can claim starfleet is NOT in self-defense when killing borg. As for the rest (what little is not just you being contrary) - read above.
Geordi (and others) didn't refuse to use the thalaron weapon because there was 'a better plan'. He refused due to an ridiculously flawed argument: "And the 'moral' reason that 'justified' not using the thalaron weapon had so many holes in it that it was ridiculous: It's immoral to 'kill' in self defence enemy soldiers; They worried that use of the weapon would have created an arms race in a nebulous future, when complete extermination was upon them (in those conditions, they should pray to be so lucky as to be alive in a month and worry about a cold war)." And the thalaron weapon use was refuted due to this 'reasoning' before the caeliar's plan appeareed.
The other problem with the thalaron weapon is that it only destroys organic matter. The technology of the cubes would be completely intact. And we already saw in Before Dishonor what happens when a Borg cube survives the death of all living drones within it: it mutates into a nanotech Grey Goo juggernaut that swallows every bit of matter thrown at it. True, BD didn't present that as something that happened automatically, and we've seen cases where it didn't ("Collective" on VGR, more or less), but if even one of those depopulated cubes made the same breakthrough, it would've made things far worse. So on every level, it would've been a Bad Idea.