BOBW..the fleet?

[RobertScorpio]

So, the Borg are heading towards Earth...the Federation faces virtual destruction, in fact Picard compares it to the fall of the Romans...and yet only 50 ships can be mustered up against this mortal threat?

And yet 600 ships were strung together to fight the Dominion....

WHERE WAS THE FLEET in Best of Both World's climatic battle? 50 ships..thats all??? Geeeeee...Bajor must have been really important!!!

Rob

 

[Zombie Cheerleader]

In that other Quadrant that always get the ships.

 

[SonicRanger]

It seemed like a big fleet back when we first saw it in 1990. Obviously (1) visual effects had significantly advanced between TBOBW and the later seasons of DS9 and (2) the producers of the two different series had different ideas about the size of Starfleet and how many ships could be pulled together into one area of space.

 

[Cyke101]

So, the Borg are heading towards Earth...the Federation faces virtual destruction, in fact Picard compares it to the fall of the Romans...and yet only 50 ships can be mustered up against this mortal threat?

And yet 600 ships were strung together to fight the Dominion....

WHERE WAS THE FLEET in Best of Both World's climatic battle? 50 ships..thats all??? Geeeeee...Bajor must have been really important!!!

Rob

I don't think that's fair from a narrative standpoint. The Borg attacked during peacetime while Starfleet had two years to assemble its force and build/recommission more ships. Besides, the dialogue made it quite clear that it was essentially a surprise attack, as Starfleet wasn't expecting the Borg for another year.

Let's look at the Battle of Sector 001 in First Contact: we could infer that Starfleet fought harder and longer than they did at Wolf 359, and it's possible that Starfleet's stronger presence there was attributed to the heightened Dominion threat as well as lessons learned from Wolf 359.

As cliched as it is, we could use 9/11 as a mirror of sorts: we had ships and planes and armed forces scattered around the planet. When the attack happened, we could only scramble a handful of fighters in response. It would be unfair to compare that state of readiness to how many forces we have for any given battle in Afghanistan or Iraq.

 

[JNG]

It seemed like a big fleet back when we first saw it in 1990. Obviously (1) visual effects had significantly advanced between TBOBW and the later seasons of DS9 and (2) the producers of the two different series had different ideas about the size of Starfleet and how many ships could be pulled together into one area of space.

I think in-universe explanations are sufficient for this one. DS9 and the Federation as a whole had been readying themselves for the Dominion conflict for a long time, and fleet redistributions had already taken place to deal with the Klingons in that area. Even so, it seems apparent that it took a good while to pull appreciable fleets together, which makes perfect sense considering what we have been told about the size of the Federation. The Starfleet seems to be spread quite thin; we don't have any particular reason to believe that the Enterprise, almost always seen operating alone, is an exception. As big as the Federation is, it sure would take a long time to pull ships to a conflict area from all over it, whereas the Dominion merely had to mass ships at the wormhole and later defend the (apparently fairly compact) Cardassian border area.

Compare this situation to the Borg incursion. The Borg were coming from a direction that I don't think could have been predicted, arrived notably sooner than the grimmest expectations of Starfleet planners, and were warping along so fast that Enterprise-D, the pride of the fleet, couldn't keep up for long. With these hurrying factors in mind, the fleet of forty starships assembled to fight the Borg cube is a pretty impressive one, especially considering that previous events have shown us that starships don't tend to hang around the core worlds in large numbers and make themselves useful (so often leaving Our Heroes with the only ship in the area ). While I personally do believe this was the most they could get together on short notice, it is also possible that someone at Starfleet Command underestimated the threat, and just could not get their head around the idea that defeating the single Borg ship could require a fleet even larger than the one which assembled at Wolf 359. We don't know if this fleet represented enough firepower to have done the job in a straight-up firefight, but the intel from the captured Picard and other sources apparently rendered the battle an utter mismatch instead. At least Picard gets to turn this around on them in "Star Trek: First Contact."

 

[USS Triumphant]

WHERE WAS THE FLEET in Best of Both World's climatic battle? 50 ships..thats all???

I don't have any problem with that, for reasons already stated by other posters above. But two Bic razors from Jupiter Station? THAT is Earth's whole assigned defense force?!

Even in peacetime, that seems pretty lame. Heck, even if they had only managed to muster a few museum pieces, like some old Dreadnaught-Class ships or Connies, it would have made more sense than the two Bics.

 

[RobertScorpio]

WHERE WAS THE FLEET in Best of Both World's climatic battle? 50 ships..thats all???

I don't have any problem with that, for reasons already stated by other posters above. But two Bic razors from Jupiter Station? THAT is Earth's whole assigned defense force?!

Even in peacetime, that seems pretty lame. Heck, even if they had only managed to muster a few museum pieces, like some old Dreadnaught-Class ships or Connies, it would have made more sense than the two Bics.

I thought they were russian subs...

Rob

 

[SeerSGB]

WHERE WAS THE FLEET in Best of Both World's climatic battle? 50 ships..thats all???

I don't have any problem with that, for reasons already stated by other posters above. But two Bic razors from Jupiter Station? THAT is Earth's whole assigned defense force?!

Even in peacetime, that seems pretty lame. Heck, even if they had only managed to muster a few museum pieces, like some old Dreadnaught-Class ships or Connies, it would have made more sense than the two Bics.

I've always wrote that off as either a running fire fight from Wolf 359 to Earth, a last ditch fight at the edge of the Sol System, or most of the ships saving who they could and running like hell for safety.

So, the Borg are heading towards Earth...the Federation faces virtual destruction, in fact Picard compares it to the fall of the Romans...and yet only 50 ships can be mustered up against this mortal threat?

And yet 600 ships were strung together to fight the Dominion....

WHERE WAS THE FLEET in Best of Both World's climatic battle? 50 ships..thats all??? Geeeeee...Bajor must have been really important!!!

Rob

I don't think that's fair from a narrative standpoint. The Borg attacked during peacetime while Starfleet had two years to assemble its force and build/recommission more ships. Besides, the dialogue made it quite clear that it was essentially a surprise attack, as Starfleet wasn't expecting the Borg for another year.

Let's look at the Battle of Sector 001 in First Contact: we could infer that Starfleet fought harder and longer than they did at Wolf 359, and it's possible that Starfleet's stronger presence there was attributed to the heightened Dominion threat as well as lessons learned from Wolf 359.

As cliched as it is, we could use 9/11 as a mirror of sorts: we had ships and planes and armed forces scattered around the planet. When the attack happened, we could only scramble a handful of fighters in response. It would be unfair to compare that state of readiness to how many forces we have for any given battle in Afghanistan or Iraq.

My take: Starfleet, pre-war, was largely stepped down and what was in the fleet really wasn't "combat" ships, in the sense of being purpose built warships. From Wolf 359 and onward, Starfleet turns more and more military, with an added mandate of not just defense and exploration but force projection as well.

 

[Anwar]

Those three tiny sub things that we saw were not the entire Mars and Jupiter Defense Perimeters, we only saw a tiny bit of a much larger battle that happened mostly off-screen. There was likely a big running battle with the real defenses happening from the moment the Borg entered the Sol System until all that was left were those sub things.

 

[JNG]

My take: Starfleet, pre-war, was largely stepped down and what was in the fleet really wasn't "combat" ships, in the sense of being purpose built warships. From Wolf 359 and onward, Starfleet turns more and more military, with an added mandate of not just defense and exploration but force projection as well.

Defiant was pretty clearly stated to be the first purpose-built warship (and a failure to boot). Starfleet had defended the Federation against the likes of the Cardassians, Tzenkethi and so forth over the preceding decades, so I've never understood this idea that they had somehow stood down from one of their primary missions. Why? Also, the idea of Wolf 359 somehow suggesting that more phasers or whatever would have won the battle seems to disregard the facts. So what exactly would "more military" mean for an organization which is not a military in the modern-day sense?

WHERE WAS THE FLEET in Best of Both World's climatic battle? 50 ships..thats all???

I don't have any problem with that, for reasons already stated by other posters above. But two Bic razors from Jupiter Station? THAT is Earth's whole assigned defense force?!

Even in peacetime, that seems pretty lame. Heck, even if they had only managed to muster a few museum pieces, like some old Dreadnaught-Class ships or Connies, it would have made more sense than the two Bics.

The Mars Defense Perimeter "Blue-Gray Octobers" were models made by the Art Department when budget ran short elsewhere. Commercial submarine model kits were used to build them. They were uncrewed sublight probes, essentially flying bombs with large tanks of matter and antimatter. I think the fact that the Borg bothered to shoot them down instead of letting them impact suggests that they would have done significant damage. It's good that we saw *something* on perimeter defense, but still it is consistent with earlier Treks that Sol system doesn't have any special or major defenses like a Home Fleet or anything.

 

[Search4]

It would be straightforward for Earth to have a significant planetary defense. We have seen planetary shields in TOS, around the insane asylum planet. Earth's version could be far far stronger given the power that could be made available (1000 antimatter reactors that don't need to drive a ship at FTL?) Phasers / torpedoes / and new weapons too large to be mobile would likely be available. DS9 could take about 50 ships... imagine an armed and powered planet.

However, we have never seen any planetary defense weapons despite lots of provocation (V'ger - the Whale Probe - the Borg - the Breen). All of these attempt to attack Earth, but defense is left to a few ships. Doesn't make sense in my book.

Although - we are watching "Star Fleet" after all. Its possible there is an equivalent unit (think Air Force vs. Coast Guard) charged with a localized defense mission. And the Borg "would have" been engaged by that Coast Guard has Star Fleet failed.

 

[SeerSGB]

Defiant was pretty clearly stated to be the first purpose-built warship (and a failure to boot). Starfleet had defended the Federation against the likes of the Cardassians, Tzenkethi and so forth over the preceding decades, so I've never understood this idea that they had somehow stood down from one of their primary missions. Why? Also, the idea of Wolf 359 somehow suggesting that more phasers or whatever would have won the battle seems to disregard the facts. So what exactly would "more military" mean for an organization which is not a military in the modern-day sense?

In the past Starfleet never really had a foe on the level of the Borg. They always fought, more or less, someone on the same tech level as them. And we don't really have a scale on the Cardassian conflict. We know it was bloody, but we don't know if it was really all that worse than Starfleet taking on the Klingons.

By more military, what I mean is Starfleet stops thinking about swiss-army knife type of ships and starts building for specific roles, warships, scouts, explorers, etc. Whereas in the past Starfleet put more emphasis on jack of all trade ships, with a heavy leaning towards "peaceful exploration". Starfleet takes a more "force projection" mind set instead of "our ships are heavily armed explorers".

As for more phasers = Wolf 359 win. The Borg was going to win that whether Starfleet had 40 or 140 ships. Compared to the Borg, coupled with little to no knowledge of the enemy's real capablity, Starfleet was always on the ass end of an ass kicking.

 

[Semah]

You'd think they'd learn after V ger. And the whale probe. And the Conspiracy worm things.

I don't have any problem with that, for reasons already stated by other posters above. But two Bic razors from Jupiter Station? THAT is Earth's whole assigned defense force?

 

[Timo]

However, we have never seen any planetary defense weapons despite lots of provocation (V'ger - the Whale Probe - the Borg - the Breen). All of these attempt to attack Earth, but defense is left to a few ships. Doesn't make sense in my book.

Actually, every time Earth is attacked, much is made of the fact that Earth does have defenses - and that the invaders make short work of them. V'Ger was such a threat because it could shut down all of Earth's defenses like flipping off a light switch. The Whale Probe shut down everything before entering, too. The Borg fought fixed fortifications in the Sol system all the way in, starting at Jupiter (or probably already at Saturn, or else it would have made little sense for the Cube to visit that planet as shown), and it's entirely possible it also battled with major fixed fortifications near Earth. And, of course, won.

In contrast, when the Breen came to Earth, they were torn to shreds. Which is exactly what one would expect after seeing how war is fought in the DS9 universe. Earth's defenses seemed fully prepared for such an attack, which was repelled without any major damage being wrought on Earth.

By dialogue and by plot inference, then, it seems clear that Earth has heavy defenses other than starships. At least the ones that by dialogue exist in ST:TMP wouldn't have been starships by plot inference, and the ones in "BoBW" apparently weren't ships either by plot inference (although their existence was also only through plot inference).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cyke101]

You'd think they'd learn after V ger. And the whale probe. And the Conspiracy worm things.

V'Ger, sure (though as Timo pointed out, nothing would've worked anyway). The Whale Probe didn't really have hostile intentions, it's just that its mode of communication just happened to have some nasty side effects, and ultimately that encounter was peacefully resolved. As for the parasites from Conspiracy, that's more of an espionage thing, so I doubt that any sort of brute force technology would apply.

 

[2 of 10]

Even in a time of war Earths defenses could be breeched, in 2375 the Breen attacked the very heart of the Federation, Star Fleet Headquarters and did signifacant damage, where was the Earth/Mars defense perimeter during that attack. One would think that the Federation would have kept a few Starships near Earth to defend the homeworld...

 

[Cyke101]

Even in a time of war Earths defenses could be breeched, in 2375 the Breen attacked the very heart of the Federation, Star Fleet Headquarters and did signifacant damage, where was the Earth/Mars defense perimeter during that attack. One would think that the Federation would have kept a few Starships near Earth to defend the homeworld...

As was pointed out, though, the entire Breen attack force was destroyed. Whether it was by planetary/solar system defenses or a defense fleet or a combination of the two, they were nevertheless destroyed, so there's proof right there that there *were* defenses in place. (besides, how do you NOT know the Earth/Mars defense perimeter didn't do most of the blasting? How do you know starships didn't participate in Earth's defense?)

Besides, seeing as how starships have caused catastrophic planetary damage before (The Die is Cast being a prime example), the damage we saw inflicted on San Francisco was pretty light by comparison. Even then, the episode's dialogue makes it clear that the attack was more psychological than anything else, and in a psychological attack, you don't have to cause immense physical damage.

 

[Hermiod]

Actually, every time Earth is attacked, much is made of the fact that Earth does have defenses - and that the invaders make short work of them.

Not every time. When the Breen attacked Earth the orbital defence network destroyed the Breen ships.

Attacking Earth was not something other races, apparently, took lightly. There apparently had not been such an attack on Earth since the Romulan War, and Martok says that attacking Earth directly was not something even his people would have considered.

Also, considering that a 23rd-century Constitution-class Starship was supposedly capable of destroying the surface of a planet on its own, you'd have to think that the Breen only got a few lucky shots in before the orbital defences wiped them out.

 

[Timo]

Indeed. It has long been known that a single starship can devastate a planet, if left to her own devices. So how is warfare possible at all in the Star Trek future? The answer seems to be that all major planets are heavily defended even in the absence of starships, so that hundreds of starships are needed to create even minor damage.

Granted, we only saw fixed fortifications in action in one or two occasions in DS9: around Chin'toka, and arguably when DS9 itself was shown capable of making short work of dozens of starships. But it should be noted that neither of those cases was considered exceptional. When Klingons attacked DS9, or when the Dominion did, or even when the Federation did in order to retake the station, the attacker always brought dozens if not hundreds of ships, expecting major trouble.

And when the attack on Chin'toka was planned, it involved hundreds of ships even though Sisko did now know that there was a major upgrade program going on with the planet's fixed defenses. So it very much seemed as if any major planet was expected to have at least some sort of defenses unless intelligence specifically indicated otherwise, and that breaching such default defenses would automatically require hundreds of starships.

As for the fact that we never saw such defenses anywhere besides Chin'toka, this makes perfect real-world sense: unless the camera specifically focused on an orbital fortress, as it did in "Tears of the Prophets", such a fortress would be far too small and distant to be seen. And would probably be painted black or otherwise stealthed anyway. Betazed's orbit was seen in e.g. "Menage á Troi", and was later established to have contained fortifications, but their visual absence poses no problem: even if there were millions of orbital platforms there similar to the Chin'toka ones, none should really be visible in a random shot of medium orbit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[2 of 10]

Even in a time of war Earths defenses could be breeched, in 2375 the Breen attacked the very heart of the Federation, Star Fleet Headquarters and did signifacant damage, where was the Earth/Mars defense perimeter during that attack. One would think that the Federation would have kept a few Starships near Earth to defend the homeworld...

As was pointed out, though, the entire Breen attack force was destroyed. Whether it was by planetary/solar system defenses or a defense fleet or a combination of the two, they were nevertheless destroyed, so there's proof right there that there *were* defenses in place. (besides, how do you NOT know the Earth/Mars defense perimeter didn't do most of the blasting? How do you know starships didn't participate in Earth's defense?)

Besides, seeing as how starships have caused catastrophic planetary damage before (The Die is Cast being a prime example), the damage we saw inflicted on San Francisco was pretty light by comparison. Even then, the episode's dialogue makes it clear that the attack was more psychological than anything else, and in a psychological attack, you don't have to cause immense physical damage.

It's been a while since I saw the episode in question, I did not realize that the entire Breen force had been destroyed, however, they did get to Earth, they did attack Star Fleet Headquaters, and the damage may have been more psychological effect than actual physical damage, perhaps it was a suicide attack on Earth, we did see the Jem-Hadar fighter destroy the U.S.S. Sarajevo by a suicide ramming attack. Even Worf was ready to ram the BORG Cube with the Defient in FC before the Enteprise entered the battle. Mabey the Breen did accomplish their mission, in war one never
knows.