At the end of Best of Both Worlds part 2, Riker orders a warp speed collision with the Borg cube. Do you think that would have worked?
Do you think Riker's last ditch ramming work in BOBW?
- Thread starter ConRefit79
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I haven't seen it in awhile. Just saw adverts on S3 TNG Blue Ray and Enterprise Complete Journey last night and the thought popped in my head. But, all I remember was the Star Drive was being sliced again.
I think it would have at best slowed them down, perhaps giving more people time to escape. I say that because a suicide run was never mentioned beforehand. Given the stakes, I think someone would have mentioned the option.
I don't think it would have worked, because otherwise they could send a empty vessel to ram the cube.
I did have a little piece of fanfic where the E-D did ram the Cube but the Borg ship wasn't completely destroyed, instead they began the assimilation of Earth, whilst resulted in the end of the Alpha Quadrant as we know it, with only the Tholians and Romulans offering any real resistance to the Collective, whilst most of the other powers were either wiped out or reduced to just a handful of ships here and there.
^Does it have a happy ending?
"Death is Irrelevant" The Borg. ST:TNG BOBW
Borg attacking Earth never made sense to me.
Ok, the cube conquers Earth and stars assimilating population. It would take some time.
In the while federation would problably send a massive fleet to defeat the cube and save (or destroy) Earth. Problably other quadrant powers would help. No chance borg could keep Earth.
I would have prefer BOBW to have different premises
Ok, the cube conquers Earth and stars assimilating population. It would take some time.
In the while federation would problably send a massive fleet to defeat the cube and save (or destroy) Earth. Problably other quadrant powers would help. No chance borg could keep Earth.
I would have prefer BOBW to have different premises
Well the moment the fleet arrived, the borg could beam themselve on the attacking vessels and assimilate the crew.
And because they are assimilating Earth, they have enough borg to send.
And because they are assimilating Earth, they have enough borg to send.
The Federation already assembled (what we at least believed at the time to be) a massive fleet. The Borg sliced and diced it with no effort at all.
And from what we saw in FC, assimilation doesn't take that much time at all. And if even one Borg is overlooked, you're at risk of the whole thing starting up again.
Wasn't that a last-minute-gathered fleet? Problably starfleet would be able to call more ships in more time. Anyways, the fact a single cube could resist earth planet defences bothers me. Even keeping in mind that a borg cube has the volume of 4800 galaxy class ships
We have seen that ramming at sublight works like a charm, under certain circumstances (DS9 "Tears of the Prophets", ST:NEM). Yet we also saw that it won't work too well against the Borg, as their tractor beams easily caught ships on apparent collision courses (DS9 "Emissary").
Should warp ramming work? It might help the heroes slip the tractor beam, but ships at warp might be feather-light or largely transparent to reality or whatever, depending on how we interpret warp. What we do know is that the Voyager coming out of super-hyperfast transwarp made an uncontrolled yet soft touchdown on that icy planet in "Timeless", suggesting there isn't a whole lot of traditional kinetic energy involved. Heck, the E-D herself easily stopped a starship thundering at them at highest possible warp in "The Battle", simply by applying standard tractor beam (although arguably only after said ship had hit the brakes herself). And we know that Borg tractor beams work fine at high warp ("Scorpion" et al.).
Would there be risk to Earth? I doubt that. A warp core blowing up right next to Veridian III in ST:GEN did no harm to that planet; the antimatter stores of the Yamato blowing up in "Contagion" did not scratch the paint of the E-D right next to her; etc. How could Riker have arranged for a more destructive boom than those? Especially as he gave no specific commands for rigging the famous safety systems to fail.
As for assimilation, we don't know if that was on the menu at all. In VOY, we learn the Borg like to tickle their victims with single-ship sorties again and again, goading them into developing better defense technologies and techniques to assimilate ("Child's Play"). When the Collective finally moves in to assimilate a planet, though, this involves dozens of Cubes ("Dark Frontier", "Hope and Fear"), not single ships. It's unlikely we ever saw Earth under the threat of assimilation...
Timo Saloniemi
Should warp ramming work? It might help the heroes slip the tractor beam, but ships at warp might be feather-light or largely transparent to reality or whatever, depending on how we interpret warp. What we do know is that the Voyager coming out of super-hyperfast transwarp made an uncontrolled yet soft touchdown on that icy planet in "Timeless", suggesting there isn't a whole lot of traditional kinetic energy involved. Heck, the E-D herself easily stopped a starship thundering at them at highest possible warp in "The Battle", simply by applying standard tractor beam (although arguably only after said ship had hit the brakes herself). And we know that Borg tractor beams work fine at high warp ("Scorpion" et al.).
Would there be risk to Earth? I doubt that. A warp core blowing up right next to Veridian III in ST:GEN did no harm to that planet; the antimatter stores of the Yamato blowing up in "Contagion" did not scratch the paint of the E-D right next to her; etc. How could Riker have arranged for a more destructive boom than those? Especially as he gave no specific commands for rigging the famous safety systems to fail.
As for assimilation, we don't know if that was on the menu at all. In VOY, we learn the Borg like to tickle their victims with single-ship sorties again and again, goading them into developing better defense technologies and techniques to assimilate ("Child's Play"). When the Collective finally moves in to assimilate a planet, though, this involves dozens of Cubes ("Dark Frontier", "Hope and Fear"), not single ships. It's unlikely we ever saw Earth under the threat of assimilation...
Timo Saloniemi
As far as risk to Earth, I would assume the E-D's shields were up at the time the Yamato exploded (automatically if not manually). And it might be assumed that the E-D at least managed to get rid of as much antimatter as possible prior to its own warp core failure (though maybe not).
In any event, I think this may be a case where the realistic effects of such things were downplayed, but I grant that we have to go by what's shown onscreen.
Heck, in "Q Who" there's concern that a (single?) torpedo detonating behind the E-D will destroy it with shields down.
In any event, I think this may be a case where the realistic effects of such things were downplayed, but I grant that we have to go by what's shown onscreen.
Heck, in "Q Who" there's concern that a (single?) torpedo detonating behind the E-D will destroy it with shields down.
I kind of doubt it. It was more like "If we are going to die, we are going to die trying something," even if it was futile. If Riker thought it would actually have done good, I think he would have ordered a warp speed collision at the end of BOBW part 1.
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