Discuss: The Voyager Fleet

[Paris]

^Sorry if it has already been mentioned but, what about a phased-cloak? If the emissions are shifted to another dimension, could that account for anything?? I don't have the "science" know-how that some of you seem to have...

 

[USS Triumphant]

In the interests of fairness, I've just thought of one possible reason (other than flashiness for its own sake) why Starfleet designers might've thought a ship like the Prometheus was a good idea: to surprise the enemy by making them think it's just one ship and then springing three ships on them. But the obvious flaw in that strategy is that it only works once (unless you always manage to capture or destroy the enemy before they can send out a signal).

Or, unless you're moving through space encountering numerous potential hostiles - like Voyager was in the Dairy Queen (this is what I'll be calling the DQ from now on ) throughout the TV series - who may not be communicating the features of your ship to one another, or moving fast enough to keep up with you even if they wanted to tell the next hostile about your wicked cool ship.

The design makes sense for what they'd be doing with it now, in the Voyager fleet. What I can't figure out is what in the heck it was designed for in the first place - as has been pointed out, it is pretty much a one-time-only surprise against the Romulans, Borg, etc.

Maybe it was meant to be Borg-bait in a fleet? "We are the Borg. Your fleet will lower its shields, disarm its weapons, and.... Hey! How the heck do you do that?!" and then the fleet all fires on the cube while the Borg singlemindedly go after the shiny Prometheus class.

 

[Christopher]

^The "Borg bait" idea makes some sense, since the Borg are supposedly helpless against threats they haven't encountered before; so any tactic, no matter how impractical, can serve to catch them by surprise the first time. After all, Riker's saucer-sep maneuver in "Best of Both Worlds" was somewhat effective -- though it was really just a diversion.

(Although speaking generally, the problem with that was that the episodes tended to assume that if Starfleet hadn't used a given tactic against the Borg before, it would be a surprise to them. Which kind of overlooks the fact that the Borg have been conquering civilizations across the galaxy for thousands of years. Realistically, any technology or tactic the UFP can think of would have probably already been encountered by the Borg at some time in their history.)

 

[LightningStorm]

But more efficiency is not 100 percent efficiency. What you were talking about before was perpetual motion, the generation of energy with zero cumulative loss. That's not just difficult, that's simply impossible. Entropy is absolutely fundamental to the universe as we know it. Everyone who knows anything about physics knows that perpetual motion is not just an engineering problem but a fundamental absurdity that can never be achieved.

I think you've got me and rahullak mixed up. I never ever said that nor did I imply it, I in fact said this in my very first post:

Sure, nothing can be 100% efficient, but it's possible that something could be extremely efficient such that the 'waste heat' is so small that it would take a ridiculously long time to 'cook the crew'.

If you were only saying that power systems could be made efficient enough that heat buildup would be reduced and a cloak could function for, say, a few hours with, say, an energy output only marginally above local background radiation, that's something I can accept.

This is exactly what I am saying, so we agree then.

 

[rahullak]

^

I didn't imply 100% efficiency either.

Cloaking devices seem plausible to me I wouldn't want to remove them from the Trekverse, but that's just me.

 

[USS Triumphant]

^The "Borg bait" idea makes some sense, since the Borg are supposedly helpless against threats they haven't encountered before; so any tactic, no matter how impractical, can serve to catch them by surprise the first time. After all, Riker's saucer-sep maneuver in "Best of Both Worlds" was somewhat effective -- though it was really just a diversion.

I wasn't thinking of surprising the Borg with Prometheus tactics, so much as they might see it as a novel technology that they just have to have. Possibly, they've never seen that before. Of course, that might be because it doesn't make any damned sense , but they won't really know that until they've gotten one, picked it apart, and analyzed it.

In the meantime, they'd be singlemindedly trying to get one, and the fleet could pound 'em.

If this tactic works, the next thing might be showing 'em an 8-track deck and then running away with it.

 

[Christopher]

But really, what's so special about the Prometheus's technology? It still uses standard warp drive, shields, weapons, power systems, etc. The only really new thing about it is the fact that it can split into three pieces, and as discussed above, that's more flash than substance. I'm sure the actual technology involved, such as docking clamps and power connections, is pretty basic. The pieces are the same, they're just put together in a novel way, an innovation of design rather than technology. And the Borg already know how to build ships with smaller ships inside them; the Prometheus is just a variation on that principle.

 

[rahullak]

^
Maybe the Borg would just assume that the Prometheus has some unknown piece of tech the first time, even if it really doesn't. They've no way of knowing without assimilating right.

 

[Fraize]

Prometheus designs would be useless against the Borg who, by nature of the design of their ships, have no real flank to speak of.

Other starships that aren't quite as decentralized would have vulnerable quarters. A starship that could split into three parts could harass an enemy's weak quarter, forcing him to have to continually adjust.

 

[Christopher]

^
Maybe the Borg would just assume that the Prometheus has some unknown piece of tech the first time, even if it really doesn't. They've no way of knowing without assimilating right.

Unless they have... I don't know, maybe... sensors?

All it can do is split into pieces. That's not so miraculous that the Borg would assume there's some super-advanced technology is required. Besides, the Borg have already encountered the Enterprise's saucer separation. A ship that splits into three pieces rather than two is not going to look like a technological quantum leap to them. It's just not that big a deal.

A starship that could split into three parts could harass an enemy's weak quarter, forcing him to have to continually adjust.

So would a fleet that consists of three ships to begin with, or a carrier ship with two separate ships inside it. As I've said all along, every tactical advantage you can propose for three ships can be accomplished in a simpler, more practical way than this, and therefore does not justify this gimmicky design.

 

[rahullak]

^
Maybe the Borg would just assume that the Prometheus has some unknown piece of tech the first time, even if it really doesn't. They've no way of knowing without assimilating right.

Unless they have... I don't know, maybe... sensors?

All it can do is split into pieces. That's not so miraculous that the Borg would assume there's some super-advanced technology is required. Besides, the Borg have already encountered the Enterprise's saucer separation. A ship that splits into three pieces rather than two is not going to look like a technological quantum leap to them. It's just not that big a deal.

Unless...umm...they can't use their sensors to do deep scans on the Prometheus because of umm I dunno ... shields? Besides, its not just the fact that the Prometheus can split into three. Once they notice something new, its not a stretch to imagine they'd think there's something more.

It's just a scenario anyway.

 

[Christopher]

^Like I said... they've already seen a Starfleet vessel that can split into more than one piece. There's nothing new about it just because it's 3 instead of 2. If Starfleet really wanted to come up with something the Borg would find unfamiliar and interesting, I'm sure they could come up with something less completely lame than "Let's do something they've already seen but add one more piece!"

 

[rahullak]

^

Like I said, just because all the Borg can see is a ship splitting into three doesn't mean they'd assume that's all the Prometheus can do that's new.

And I think that's a lame reason to have the Prometheus do a 3-way split anyway.

 

[Christopher]

^Which just fits what I've been saying -- there's no good reason to do it.

And the Borg don't assume anything. They have no imagination. They don't extrapolate. All they do is react to what they perceive. If you want them to react to something, you have to show them something that's overtly what you want to convey, not something that just implies it.

 

[rahullak]

^
I dunno, I always thought the Borg had some basic survival instinct that caused them to be attracted to new tech or even something that looks like it might be new tech. If they couldn't extrapolate, I don't think they'd be even able to make the jump from "2-way split" to "3-way" or "n-way" split.

 

[Christopher]

^Come on. They're not imaginative, but they're not 2-year-olds either. They aren't going to perceive any meaningful difference between "split into two pieces" and "split into three pieces." That's just too trivial to register. If I demonstrate the ability to cut a deck of cards into two piles, even the most dull-witted person in the world isn't going to think I've developed a whole new skill if I then demonstrate I can cut it into three piles.

Besides, you just said it was a lame reason. Why in the name of all that's holy are you wasting so much of your time and mine defending a hypothesis that even you don't believe in?

 

[rahullak]

^
Wasn't arguing for the hypothesis that the Prometheus has the 3-way split to try to "fool" the Borg. Someone else was supporting that.

I just had some views on the way the Borg behave, that's all. Sorry if it seemed to you to be a waste of time.

 

[Rosalind]

A ship that splits into three pieces rather than two is not going to look like a technological quantum leap to them.

gah! I expect better from you Christopher. "quantum leap", indeed. next thing I know, you'll be start using "meteoric rising".

 

[USS Triumphant]

Um, guys - I wasn't serious in my Borg-bait comments. I was making fun of the useless novelty of the 3-way split. Because we all know that the Borg are novelty whores. All those prosthetics? Those actually developed out of individual Borg wearing increasing amounts of flare, until they ran out of room and started implanting them.

But yes, I figure the Prometheus has some sort of sensor deflecting shields, so the Borg can't see what's inside. But rather than splitting, they could maybe just tell the Borg that they are carrying food storage containers that can be burped.

 

[rahullak]

^