Dealt with. You still need to show:
A: That the fleet was scattered over an area of space 10-15 minutes away from the mouths of the subspace tunnels;
and
B: That it took the Borg longer than 10-15 minutes to take out the fleet.
Have any of the novels ever just made you mad? (
- Thread starter darkwing_duck1
- Start date
Dealt with. You still need to show:
A: That the fleet was scattered over an area of space 10-15 minutes away from the mouths of the subspace tunnels;
and
B: That it took the Borg longer than 10-15 minutes to take out the fleet.
How small? Compared to the size of ONE PLANET, the size of a solar system is quite large! The Thalaron weapon has a large area of effect on a planetary scale, but as you are so fond of pointing out, space is much bigger than that.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Thrawn
How small is the entrance to the subspace tunnel? A classic bottleneck. The borg will initially be crowded in that area.
Allied fleets could have fried them near the tunnel or could have formed a shell (or, to be more exact, could have targeted the cubes, a complete shell NOT being necessary) a little further out.
Thalaron weapon have an enormous range by comparison to phasers.
The allied fleet, if it fires its phasers simulaneously, can hit a large number of the borg cubes (hundreds). With the thalaron weapon, it could hit even more cubes with one simultaneous discharge.
How small is the entrance to the subspace tunnel? A classic bottleneck. The borg will initially be crowded in that area.
Allied fleets could have fried them near the tunnel or could have formed a shell (or, to be more exact, could have targeted the cubes, a complete shell NOT being necessary) a little further out.
Thalaron weapon have an enormous range by comparison to phasers.
The allied fleet, if it fires its phasers simulaneously, can hit a large number of the borg cubes (hundreds). With the thalaron weapon, it could hit even more cubes with one simultaneous discharge.
From the first paragraph in Chapter 4 of Mere Mortals:
"...render the ship strong enough to brave the embrace of the Azure Nebula. The supernova remnant looked to Commander Miranda Kadohata like a bruise without a body as it grew larger on the main viewscreen. Then it swallowed the stars as the Aventine and the Enterprise moved inside it, less than a minute's flight from the coordinates at which the Aventine had exited a subspace corridor from the Gamma Quadrant."
Ten or fifteen minutes, eh?
As far as the subspace tunnel entrance, they didn't know which tunnel the Borg were coming out of, and they came out in overwhelming numbers. I still can't see how, if you split the fleet to cover all the remaining tunnels, and you positioned them within one planet's diameter of the aperture, how 7,000 cubes coming out couldn't remove that threat within seconds. You'd still only get a few hundred.
Even being generous, you certainly wouldn't get all of them. And then they'd adapt, and you'd be worse off than before.
"...render the ship strong enough to brave the embrace of the Azure Nebula. The supernova remnant looked to Commander Miranda Kadohata like a bruise without a body as it grew larger on the main viewscreen. Then it swallowed the stars as the Aventine and the Enterprise moved inside it, less than a minute's flight from the coordinates at which the Aventine had exited a subspace corridor from the Gamma Quadrant."
Ten or fifteen minutes, eh?
As far as the subspace tunnel entrance, they didn't know which tunnel the Borg were coming out of, and they came out in overwhelming numbers. I still can't see how, if you split the fleet to cover all the remaining tunnels, and you positioned them within one planet's diameter of the aperture, how 7,000 cubes coming out couldn't remove that threat within seconds. You'd still only get a few hundred.
Even being generous, you certainly wouldn't get all of them. And then they'd adapt, and you'd be worse off than before.
Damn, I wish I wasn't going to work or I'd have time to get quotes from FC. If this debate is still going on by the time I get off I'll get some actual quotes Thrawn. I'm pretty sure you're right though. I haven't read the books since they first came out, but I'm pretty sure the whole point was that the Borg came on in such numbers so quickly that the Allied fleet had no chance to react, Thalaron Weapon or no Thalaron Weapon.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Thrawn
"Ten or fifteen minutes, eh?"
Azure nebula and surrounding regions, then - hundreds of ships in battle formation are not parked in 1 minute flight radius; and the cubes did NOT come out of the gamma quadrant tunnel.
"As far as the subspace tunnel entrance, they didn't know which tunnel the Borg were coming out of, and they came out in overwhelming numbers."
So what - they only had a dozen or so potential entry points. A single ship with pre-charged thalaron emitters could completely radiate everything in the vicinity of a tunnel instantly; of course, it's preferable to let a few hundred borg ships come through before radiating them.
"Even being generous, you certainly wouldn't get all of them. And then they'd adapt, and you'd be worse off than before."
Considering the enormous range of thalaron weaponry and your ideal strategic position, you have a very good chance to get all of them - at the very least, a large part of them.
And, considering the vastly reduced number of borg cubes, you're will be in a far better position even after the borg adapt.
JD
By all means - quote the battle - you do know 'Full circle' does NOT describe the entire battle, yes?
"Ten or fifteen minutes, eh?"
Azure nebula and surrounding regions, then - hundreds of ships in battle formation are not parked in 1 minute flight radius; and the cubes did NOT come out of the gamma quadrant tunnel.
"As far as the subspace tunnel entrance, they didn't know which tunnel the Borg were coming out of, and they came out in overwhelming numbers."
So what - they only had a dozen or so potential entry points. A single ship with pre-charged thalaron emitters could completely radiate everything in the vicinity of a tunnel instantly; of course, it's preferable to let a few hundred borg ships come through before radiating them.
"Even being generous, you certainly wouldn't get all of them. And then they'd adapt, and you'd be worse off than before."
Considering the enormous range of thalaron weaponry and your ideal strategic position, you have a very good chance to get all of them - at the very least, a large part of them.
And, considering the vastly reduced number of borg cubes, you're will be in a far better position even after the borg adapt.
JD
By all means - quote the battle - you do know 'Full circle' does NOT describe the entire battle, yes?
So, you're the one who brought it up. I always love it when some one bring something up, and then when you actually try to prove them right or wrong they get all pissy. You're really not that confident in what is says, are you?
Something else that noone else has brought up is the fact that the Thalaron Weapon will only take out their biological elements of the Borg, and as we've seen before, even their tech alone is very dangerous. So even if you use it, you still haven't eliminated the threat.
Something else that noone else has brought up is the fact that the Thalaron Weapon will only take out their biological elements of the Borg, and as we've seen before, even their tech alone is very dangerous. So even if you use it, you still haven't eliminated the threat.
Full impulse is one quarter light speed. One light-second, by wikipedia, is 299 792 458 meters, so one light-minute is a little over 17 million kilometers, and a quarter of that is still over 4 million kilometers. The radius of Earth is 6,378 km, so the diameter is twice that, but you're still off by three orders of magnitude. (And since each ship is less than one cubic kilometer, you also have no justification for hundreds of ships not being able to fit. Hell, you could fit a fleet of hundreds just in Earth orbit so far away they could barely see each other.)
A ship traveling at full impulse, as any ship entering possible enemy territory would obviously be, would travel the diameter of earth in less than two TENTHS OF A SECOND.
If a Borg cube can traverse the entire effective range of a Thalaron blast in that amount of time, it's just intuitively obvious that each ship would only be able to take out one; they would obviously have to track and follow one particular Borg cube.
Even IF the Thalaron blast could be sustained over the exit portal, and take out a number of Borg cubes rapidly, the Borg have instantaneous communication and would be able to get the cubes behind to target and attack the vessels creating the Thalaron blast.
Again, space is HUGE. Even one quarter of one light minute is a vast area of space. There's no possible way to take out 7,000 cubes in 64 QUINTILLION cubic kilometers of space with a few hundred ships that can be destroyed in a matter of seconds. Period. You're completely delusional if you think otherwise.
A ship traveling at full impulse, as any ship entering possible enemy territory would obviously be, would travel the diameter of earth in less than two TENTHS OF A SECOND.
If a Borg cube can traverse the entire effective range of a Thalaron blast in that amount of time, it's just intuitively obvious that each ship would only be able to take out one; they would obviously have to track and follow one particular Borg cube.
Even IF the Thalaron blast could be sustained over the exit portal, and take out a number of Borg cubes rapidly, the Borg have instantaneous communication and would be able to get the cubes behind to target and attack the vessels creating the Thalaron blast.
Again, space is HUGE. Even one quarter of one light minute is a vast area of space. There's no possible way to take out 7,000 cubes in 64 QUINTILLION cubic kilometers of space with a few hundred ships that can be destroyed in a matter of seconds. Period. You're completely delusional if you think otherwise.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
"By all means - quote the battle - you do know 'Full circle' does NOT describe the entire battle, yes?"
I invited - and invite you - to quote the 'full circle' passages, JD.
Without the drones, the cubes will be inactive - at least for a while; of course, you'll destroy them by conventional means in the next seconds.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Thrawn
You can TARGET the thalaron weapons - you son't need to radiate a complete spherical area of space - including enourmous swaths of empty space.
I already addressed this, actually:
"Thalaron weapons have an enormous range by comparison to phasers.
The allied fleet, if it fires its phasers simulaneously, can hit a large number of the borg cubes (hundreds). With the thalaron weapon, it could hit even more cubes with one simultaneous discharge."
By your logic, a phaser could never hit anything.
But, you see, space may be huge, but you target only little areas of it with phasers, and far larger areas with thalaron weapons.
You can TARGET the thalaron weapons - you son't need to radiate a complete spherical area of space - including enourmous swaths of empty space.
I already addressed this, actually:
"Thalaron weapons have an enormous range by comparison to phasers.
The allied fleet, if it fires its phasers simulaneously, can hit a large number of the borg cubes (hundreds). With the thalaron weapon, it could hit even more cubes with one simultaneous discharge."
By your logic, a phaser could never hit anything.
But, you see, space may be huge, but you target only little areas of it with phasers, and far larger areas with thalaron weapons.
this thread's making me mad. it's worse than the fucking death of Janeway threads.
In the EXACT POST you just replied to, I said "each ship would only be able to take out one". This obviously implies targeting!
What I'm saying is that unlike phasers or torpedoes, which are precise directional weapons, a Federation ship could not target more than ONE AT A TIME. And with the high rate of attrition that SEVEN THOUSAND cubes would be able to wreak on the fleet, there's no way that more than a handful of ships would get off a second shot. (You still haven't given even the slightest shred of evidence that the battle would last, or did last, longer than a minute.)
Which leads us to - as I said several posts ago - only taking out a few hundred cubes at most.
What I'm saying is that unlike phasers or torpedoes, which are precise directional weapons, a Federation ship could not target more than ONE AT A TIME. And with the high rate of attrition that SEVEN THOUSAND cubes would be able to wreak on the fleet, there's no way that more than a handful of ships would get off a second shot. (You still haven't given even the slightest shred of evidence that the battle would last, or did last, longer than a minute.)
Which leads us to - as I said several posts ago - only taking out a few hundred cubes at most.
Actually, you know what? While we're at it - the Thalaron weapon wouldn't even need to take out a whole planet-sized area simultaneously. Planets are fixed targets, and it would be quite easy for a stealthed ship like the Scimitar to fly around the planet and irradiate it in swathes.
Do we have any textual evidence about the area of effect that a Thalaron weapon would have simultaneously?
When Seven brought it up, she was describing an attack through a wormhole on the Borg staging area, which is not the same thing as 7,000 cubes already in motion and flying at you.
Do we have any textual evidence about the area of effect that a Thalaron weapon would have simultaneously?
When Seven brought it up, she was describing an attack through a wormhole on the Borg staging area, which is not the same thing as 7,000 cubes already in motion and flying at you.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Unless the borg cubes are near the subspace tunnel or relatively near each other (closer than a planet radius to each other) when each ships' thalaron discharge can irradiate far more than one borg cube.
And Crusher, in 'Nemesis' does say thalaron radiation can encompass a ship or an entire planet - implying impressive targeting control possible for the thalaron weapon.
How many, before the Borg destroy the ship firing the Thalaron weapon?
Again, you refuse to quote Full Circle, so I have to go with Destiny, which says that by the time Paris gives the order to fire "it was already too late".
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
We'll be in that league by the time this argument reaches page 100 or so.
Until then, we're amateurs
.
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Thrawn
"How many, before the Borg destroy the ship firing the Thalaron weapon?"
The cubes proximate to this particular ship will be already dead.
And there are hundreds of allied ships with thalaron weaponry.
As per 'Full circle' - I don't have the ebook to copy/paste. It does show Voyager being in the first line of allied ships attacked; it goes down at the beginning of the battle (when only 5-20 cubes appeared).
"How many, before the Borg destroy the ship firing the Thalaron weapon?"
The cubes proximate to this particular ship will be already dead.
And there are hundreds of allied ships with thalaron weaponry.
As per 'Full circle' - I don't have the ebook to copy/paste. It does show Voyager being in the first line of allied ships attacked; it goes down at the beginning of the battle (when only 5-20 cubes appeared).
ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Checked - chapter 25.
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