Have any of the novels ever just made you mad? (

[BillJ]

Where's the logic in arguing with a proven success?

I apologize to David Mack in advance and this statement in not an indictment of the vast majority of his work, which I have enjoyed. And the below statement is my opinion.

'Plan A' came off as lazy writing. There was no human ingenuity, just waiting around for the 'Jesus' figure Hernandez and her cronies to save the day. I could even forgive Geordi's horribly forced "moral" stand if he had offered another avenue for them to explore.

 

[JD]

No, given everything that happend in the entire trilogy it was pretty much the only way it could ended. I mean seriously the whole thing was set up pretty much from the moment Columbia first ran into the Caeliar. If it didn't end that way it would have completely and totally defeated the purpose of the entire trilogy at that point. At the very least it would have ruined the whole trilogy for me, and it would have seriously pissed me off.

As for Plan B, you can't seriously, truly have expected them to use something like that in a Trek book? It does kinda go against the whole point of what makes Trek Trek.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

I will add this to the whole "using thalaron weaponry at the Azure nebula, when the Borg fleet showed up" thing.

From Nemesis we know thalaron weapons take a while to charge up to fire on a ship desgned to fire them, so ships that have to make modes might actually take longer. In other words they only work if the target stays in the kill zone till it charges and fires. The Borg fleet didn't do that they just ran over the fleet so it wouldn't have worked.

The thalaron weapon takes a few minutes (2-3) to charge, not hours. The borg armada would still be in the area proximate to the subspace tunnel after a few minutes.
This means the charging time presents no significant drawback.

You mean, other than the fact that the Borg will destroy your ship in those two to three minutes before it can charge?

The borg may destroy a few of the hundreds of ships equipped with thalaron emitters in 2-3 minutes. The other ones will return thalaron fire.

Of course, you could even have a number of ships maintain their deflectors (thalaron emitteres) charged at all times.
These ships will go through their energy reserves at a vastly accelerated rate? Will their deflectors burn out in 2 weeks? These are mere minor impediments.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

the astronomical improbability

The whole story depends on 'astronomical improbability' to work in the first place.

No, not really.

The story depends on the fact that Titan finds the caeliar just when the borg launched their invasion - that's one 'astronomical improbability'; and not the only one from the trilogy.

There's no point quibbling over the technicalities of whether a thalaron weapon would've worked. If the trilogy had just ended with a few thousand cubes getting thalaronned and things going back to status quo for a while until the next time the Borg invaded a few years later, that would've been a lousy ending, dramatically speaking. It wouldn't have been the definitive resolution to the Borg saga, let alone a decent payoff to the threads that the trilogy set in motion. So there's no point in arguing that it could've worked or should've been tried, because the story wasn't supposed to end that way. This isn't real history, it's fiction, and it follows the rules of drama. A weapon only works if the story calls for it to work.

The thalaron weapon element of the story was badly used.

First, it is established through 7 of 9 that it has good chances of working against the borg.

Then it is not used at Azure nebula by a justification that's just nutty - worying about future weapon proliferation in a situation where you will soon be dead (a FAR worse scenario) makes no sense. It also greately overestimates the external politics of ash clouds floating over dead worlds.

And, at the end, the thalaron emitter is not used because it is a 'weapon of mass destruction', when it is no more a weapon of mass destruction than a foton torpedo - both can destroy a planet in minutes.

 

[Admiral_Young]

The entirety of "Before Dishonor" made me mad and baffled. I was pissed that it was such a piece of garbage and baffled that Peter David had written it.

 

[Nardpuncher]

The entirety of "Before Dishonor" made me mad and baffled. I was pissed that it was such a piece of garbage and baffled that Peter David had written it.

Agreed.
I read Vendetta when I was 17 and adored it. It felt like the fastest paced, most exciting Trek book ever. It probably was by many standards.
Before Dishonor felt like watching a Trek video game being written out.One with lots of pew pew pews.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I just couldn't believe how out of character and over dramatic the book was...granted the Borg were launching a pretty devastating attack but we've never seen our beloved heroes react in the way they were. Has Peter ever given an interview on the book?

 

[Hartzilla2007]

The thalaron weapon takes a few minutes (2-3) to charge, not hours. The borg armada would still be in the area proximate to the subspace tunnel after a few minutes.
This means the charging time presents no significant drawback.

You mean, other than the fact that the Borg will destroy your ship in those two to three minutes before it can charge?

The borg may destroy a few of the hundreds of ships equipped with thalaron emitters in 2-3 minutes. The other ones will return thalaron fire.

Of course, you could even have a number of ships maintain their deflectors (thalaron emitteres) charged at all times.
These ships will go through their energy reserves at a vastly accelerated rate? Will their deflectors burn out in 2 weeks? These are mere minor impediments.

THEY DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO DO ANYTHING AGAINST THE BORG!

If you had bothered to pay attention to that part of the story you would noticed the Borg DID NOT STOP and fight the expedition fleet they RAN THE FLEET OVER BEFORE THEY HAD TIME TO EVEN GET A SHOT OFF then went about heading to ever inhabited planet in the quadrant before the Enterprise and Aventine got back.

So no having thalaron waepons would have ment s@#t at that battle BECAUSE THERE WAS NO BATTLE just the Borg being the windsheild to the fleet's bugs.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Hartzilla2007

So - you think the borg teleported from the subspace tunnel to far beyond the Azure nebula in an instant? Not a very realistic representation of events.

Due to physics, the borg would need 10-15 minutes to get out of the Azure nebula and leave it far behind - plenty of time for the allied fleet to fry them with thalaron weapons. 'Destiny' shows only the start of the battle, Hartzilla.


Also - if the borg did not fire and just crashed into the allied vessels, then a large part of the allied fleet would have been intact after the borg passed it - you see, space is big, a LOT LOT LOT bigger than a parking garage.

 

[Thrawn]

And I quote, from near the end of Chapter 19:

"The Borg," Chakotay spluttered.
Nodding, Picard tried to calm him. "Yes, Captain. We-"
"Rammed us," Chakotay continued, mumbling in a monotone born of severe shock. "Smashed the whole fleet..."



The Borg can steer, ProtoAvatar. It's not like they just ran into them by accident because it was too crowded. With 7,000 cubes, they were so powerful they didn't even need to slow down to fire; they just rammed them and kept going. Couldn't have been clearer.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

And I quote, from near the end of Chapter 19:

"The Borg," Chakotay spluttered.
Nodding, Picard tried to calm him. "Yes, Captain. We-"
"Rammed us," Chakotay continued, mumbling in a monotone born of severe shock. "Smashed the whole fleet..."

You should also read 'Full circle' for a somewhat more detailed - and realistic aka respecting the laws of physics - representation of the beginning of the battle.

One that depicts the borg actually firing istead of ineffectively "steering" - really? Does "steering" strike you as something that could actually achieve results in anything approaching the size of outer space, with ships as maneuverable and fast as trekverse ships?
In said conditions, 7000 cubes are not enough to thoroughly comb even a minuscule region of space, relatively speaking.

 

[Thrawn]

I don't have that one on Kindle, and my physical copy is loaned out. (And it's been a year and a half since I read it.) Care to quote some relevant portions?

 

[Thrawn]

And I quote, from near the end of Chapter 19:

"The Borg," Chakotay spluttered.
Nodding, Picard tried to calm him. "Yes, Captain. We-"
"Rammed us," Chakotay continued, mumbling in a monotone born of severe shock. "Smashed the whole fleet..."

You should also read 'Full circle' for a more detailed - and realistic aka respecting the laws of physics - representation of the battle.

One that depicts the borg actually firing istead of ineffectively "steering" - really? Does "steering" strike you as something that could actually achieve results in anything approaching the size of outer space, with ships as maneouverable and fast as trekverse ships?

Dude, I just read the damn book three weeks ago, and that's what it said. Realistic or otherwise, that's what was literally in the literal text of the actual book I physically read. If you're arguing that the Thalaron weapon would've been useful based on things that are actually in the text, then fine, but if you're arguing based on your own imaginary version of the battle that you think makes more sense than what's actually there, then that's just a little ridiculous. So tell me what description you're basing your information on and we'll go from there.

(And for the record, we saw a Federation ship ram a Borg cube to destroy it, and that was also mentioned as a possibility as far back as The Best Of Both Worlds. If we can do it, I see no reason they can't.)

 

[ProtoAvatar]

And I quote, from near the end of Chapter 19:

"The Borg," Chakotay spluttered.
Nodding, Picard tried to calm him. "Yes, Captain. We-"
"Rammed us," Chakotay continued, mumbling in a monotone born of severe shock. "Smashed the whole fleet..."

You should also read 'Full circle' for a more detailed - and realistic aka respecting the laws of physics - representation of the battle.

One that depicts the borg actually firing istead of ineffectively "steering" - really? Does "steering" strike you as something that could actually achieve results in anything approaching the size of outer space, with ships as maneouverable and fast as trekverse ships?

Dude, I just read the damn book three weeks ago, and that's what it said. Realistic or otherwise, that's what was literally in the literal text of the actual book I physically read. If you're arguing that the Thalaron weapon would've been useful based on things that are actually in the text, then fine, but if you're arguing based on your own imaginary version of the battle that you think makes more sense than what's actually there, then that's just a little ridiculous. So tell me what description you're basing your information on and we'll go from there.

Dude, 'Destiny' never gave a first-hand description of the battle (just general one-liners), unlike 'Full circle' which described its beginning.

And 'ramming' is not even close to being realistic.

(And for the record, we saw a Federation ship ram a Borg cube to destroy it, and that was also mentioned as a possibility as far back as The Best Of Both Worlds. If we can do it, I see no reason they can't.)

That would be one ship ramming evasive maneuvers challenged borg ships. NOT thousands of ships that can actually maneuver.

 

[Thrawn]

Ok, but I don't have Full Circle on hand, so what did it say?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Ok, but I don't have Full Circle on hand, so what did it say?

As said, it described the beginning of the battle, the borg ships firing - and not bothering to make curves around allied ships.

It definitely did NOT describe borg cubes 'steering', chasing allied ships in order to run them over.

 

[Thrawn]

The question we're debating at the moment is how long the allied ships had to attack the Borg. Whether you take it literally or figuratively, I would think Mack's language suggests that the battle was over more or less instantly, the Borg not even slowing down. Unless Full Circle indicates otherwise, I'll take that as given.

Again: I don't care how you think the battle should've gone. I care how the authors actually described it. Faster than light travel makes it completely plausible that the Borg could be on the fleet in an instant, past them in one massive volley, and then warping away. I don't know where your ten to fifteen minute thing comes from, and unless you give me textual evidence, I'm just going to assume you made it up and ignore it.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Slowing down or not, the borg ships would still need 10-15 minutes to get out of the Azure nebula and pass the allied fleet - the cubes did NOT instantly teleport from the subspace tunnel to wherever.

Edit: Textual evidence - 'Full circle'; beginning of the battle - the borg were NOT going at warp; they appeared at the subspace tunnel, went throuth the allied fleet at impulse, shooting their way through. Deal with it.

 

[Thrawn]

Again - aside from your ass, where are you getting those numbers from?

Here's my thinking. The Thalaron weapon was designed to take out a planet. Even if we're talking about impulse power only, a ship at full impulse could fly one AU in 32 minutes, so the amount of time to fly a distance equivalent to the diameter of a planet is effectively miniscule. Thus, one ship could not have any hope of taking out more than one Borg cube, because it couldn't affect a space large enough to contain more than one of them for longer than a period measurable in fractions of a second.

How many ships were in the allied fleet? "Hundreds." (Chapter 20). How many ships were in the Borg fleet? Over seven thousand. PLUS, in seconds, the Borg would destroy most of those hundreds.

So maybe if every ship was pre-charged, and fired as soon as they were able to lock on to a particular cube, they could take out 500. Out of 7,000. And then the Borg would have hours and hours on their way to the core worlds of the Federation to adapt to that, and maybe even use it. The attacks on Vulcan, Andor, etc that were stopped would've been fairly moot if the Borg could've instantaneously wiped out every single living thing, no?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Thrawn

Allied ships carrying pre-charges thalaron emitters (which, as I already established, is quite feasible) could face the borg near the entrance to the subspace tunnel - taking thousands out with one discharge.

Or hundreds of allied ships carrying thalaron weapons could await the borg at the edge of the Azure nebula. Considering the distance, they would have more than enough time to charge their emitters - taking hundreds/thousands out with a simultaneous discharge.

The borg were in a bottleneck - a lot of cubes in a relatively small area - perfect for the thalaron weapons.

PS - "aside from your ass" So, when you run out of arguments, you resort to ad personam attacks - I've seen this behaviour from your part before.
Unlike your instantaneous battle, my numbers are not an affront to physics (and I even justified them - despite the fact that commom sense should make this redundant).