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

[Thrawn]

Ok, here we go -

"There were no vessels in sight, only charred hulls and chunks of twisted metal glowing and flaming to their deaths. And still, more cubes were coming. All of this the Borg had wrought in less than 30 seconds."

LESS THAN 30 SECONDS.

Do I need to bold it for you? Perhaps you'd like it in a larger font?

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Ok, here we go -

"There were no vessels in sight, only charred hulls and chunks of twisted metal glowing and flaming to their deaths. And still, more cubes were coming. All of this the Borg had wrought in less than 30 seconds."

LESS THAN 30 SECONDS.

Do I need to bold it for you? Perhaps you'd like it in a larger font?

Yes - the first line of allied vessels; only 5-10 cubes were in the Alpha quadrant aka this was the very beginnning of the battle.

Thalaron weapon equipped vessels could easily stop this first wave of borg cubes - and the subsequent ones. Of course, a better strategy would be to let a number of cubes in before irradiating them.

 

[Thrawn]

Paragraphs earlier, it mentions that three hundred and forty ships are in the nebula, then it comments on the Borg attacking several Klingon and Romulan as well as Federation vessels. There is no other line of allied vessels; that's it.

Also, it says that Chakotay had "lost count" of the number of ships by the time Voyager was rammed. (Incidentally - I was right about that too. The text mentions that what they didn't destroy with weapons, they destroyed by "running into them".) I don't think Chakotay loses count at 5.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Paragraphs earlier, it mentions that three hundred and forty ships are in the nebula, then it comments on the Borg attacking several Klingon and Romulan as well as Federation vessels. There is no other line of allied vessels; that's it.

~340 in battle formation are NOT arranged in a single line.

And, apparently, Chakotay does lose count at 5-10.
Didn't Hernandez, in 'Destiny', saw the end of the battle - what with the cubes engaging allied ships near the Azure nebula? And with most cubes coming in after that? Obviously, cubes can only traverse the tunnel one (or very few) at a time.

 

[Thrawn]

Yes, she sure did. Let me quote that for you too:

"The steady stream of black starships coursed like poison into an indigo nebula and rammed through a fleet of hundreds of ships; many of them were Starfleet and Klingon vessels, but there were also dozens of Romulan and Cardassian ships. The Borg crushed all of them like children's toys beneath the boots of angry giants."

And I checked; there's no mention later of any other ships nearby.

EDIT: The next line is "even after the fleet had been pulverized and scattered into the blue storm, the anomaly continued to hemorrhage Borg ships." That doesn't say that only 5 or 10 destroyed the fleet.

There were THOUSANDS of cubes. It's possible for over 1000 to have come out in the first 30 seconds and for it still to have "hemhorraged ships" for three minutes afterwards.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Thrawn

"there's no mention later of any other ships nearby"

Meaning the gamma quadrant tunnel was near the edge of the Azure nebula - unless you want to have Chakotay as incompetent enough to arrange 340+ ships in a 1 minute flight radius, in what is a carricature of a battle formation (yes, do put your ships so close together that your enemy can detonate a warp core and destroy them all in one hit).

"That doesn't say that only 5 or 10 destroyed the fleet."

The fact that the collective needed so much time to transport its fleet through the tunnel certifies that only one (a few) cubes at a time could traverse the tunnel aka only 5-10 cubes were present when Voyager was damaged.

So - at the Azure nebula only ~340 ships were lost? That's surprisinngly few; out of them, let's say only 50 were federation. Satafleet lost far more ships - around 100 - in battles during the dominion war and their loss was not catastrophic or anything.

And these ships' conventional weapons, predictably, were useless against the borg - from what we saw, ~20 cubes would have been enough to easily destroy them all.
In these conditions, NOT equipping the ships with thalaron weaponry (which could have masssively changed the outcome of the battle) or transphasics was a clear sign of incompetence on the part of the admiralty.

 

[Thrawn]

A 1-minute flight radius is, I'll repeat, over 4 MILLION KILOMETERS, or two-dimensionally (which would make more sense anyway) 16 TRILLION square kilometers. There is no weapon with an area of effect that large; that's hardly so close your enemy can detonate a warp core and destroy them all in one hit. You just have a really poor understanding of how fast impulse actually is.

Out of the 340 ships, more than half would've had to be Federation, and this was also after many of the Federation's ships had been destroyed in earlier engagements. And there were several other ships held back to defend the core worlds, as well, all of which were also destroyed.

And yes - 20 cubes were probably enough to destroy them all. And the Borg had 350 times that many!

The bottom line is this - the Federation had NO weapons of ANY kind, Thalaron or otherwise, that would've prevailed in any real numbers against a force that could destroy them in 30 seconds with a fractional amount of their total fleet. You're arguing "gross incompetence" over an effect of perhaps 15 extra seconds of survival.

It's really not my fault that your imaginary version of the battle didn't use your imaginary tactics to produce an imaginary result that no actual in-universe evidence supports. Nor is it the Admiralty's, or David Mack's.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

1 minute flight radius or 4 million kilometers is ridiculously small area to put 340 ships.
The detonation of any torpedo from the enemy would hit 3 or more ships; a warp core detonation would destroy them by the dozens.

Putting your ships in such a small area is crass incompetence - so, either was Chakotay just so incompetent othe Azure nebula was far larger than 1 minute flight time.


The admiralty was incompetent because they failed to take into account and computer model the very probable/predictable situation in which the borg send 100 (or even less) cubes through the tunnels and take appropiate measures (I listed a few above).

You see, 20 cubes would have been enough to destroy the allied fleet because it was NOT equipped with thalaron weapons, transphasics, etc.

I already showed how thalaron weapons, coupled with the highly advantageous strategic position, could have enabled even so few allied ships to stop the vastly larger borg fleet.
The fact that the borg had no trouble destroying an allied fleet that could only shoot the eqivalent of small stones at the cubes does NOT mean the borg would defeat an allied fleet equipped with weapons that can destroy multiple borg cubes with a single discharge, when the allied ships would have no trouble targeting multiple borg cubes.


About the 340 ships - they were federation, klingon, romulan, cardassian, orion, gorn, breen, ferengi - at most 50 were federation ships:
This single loss was healded as a disaster even after 'Destiny' when we know from DS9 that the federation lost ~100 ships in battles before and took it in stride.

 

[Thrawn]

The fleet was building not to DEFEND but to ATTACK, and the tactics to be used for that were still being decided on. The Borg coming through at that moment shocked everyone.

In your imaginary version of Destiny, the entire tactical parameters of the fight were unlike anything given in the books, the admiralty had prior information that it didn't possess in the books, the Thalaron weapon was much more powerful and easy to use than in the books, the fleet was much larger than in the books, and the Federation had a much better tactical position than in the books...

...AND YOU STILL admit that the Borg would not have been completely defeated.

The point of the trilogy was that the Federation couldn't win. That's no different, even in your imaginary rewrite of it. You're just complaining about wind speed of the hurricane.

Would you have been happier if a Thalaron weapon destroyed 2,000 Borg cubes, and then 7,000 more emerged afterwards and the entire rest of the book was the same? How about if a Thalaron weapon destroyed 7,000 and then 70,000 more emerged? It's not like the Borg were some real thing that only had a certain amount of resources; the author was making it up. He made the force large enough to represent an overwhelming undefeatable quantity. If he'd decided to let Thalarons work, he would've just made it larger, so it still represented an overwhelming undefeatable quantity.

He could have imagined all kinds of different tactics, but the point of the story was that they all failed, or would fail. That's it. It would have changed nothing, except adding a whole bunch of extra unnecessary scenes where people come up with more pointless ideas. It would've distracted from the narrative drive, and added nothing to the trilogy.

 

[starri]

This single loss was healded as a disaster even after 'Destiny' when we know from DS9 that the federation lost ~100 ships in battles before and took it in stride.

During her address to the Federation at the end of the book, President Bacco makes a comment about how Starfleet had never completely recovered from the Dominion War. So they weren't at their full strength even before the Borg Invasion started, and then there were all the ships that had been lost the the lead-up to the big battle in the Azure Nebula.

The Klingons had been split by a major insurrection (cf The Left Hand of Destiny), the Romulans had been fighting amongst themselves for a year previously (and even still, it seems like Donatra was willing to commit a large force to the fight, even though neither of the Romulan states had been threatened), the Cardassians were still rebuilding, and the Orions, Breen, Gorn, and even the Ferengi are minor powers at best.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

So - the admirality did not foresee the very obvious possibility that the borg would come through the tunnel before the allied fleet attacked? That's incompetence - what, did they think the borg will respect the federation's timetable?
And this is why the admirality failed to even eqip - even to consider equipping - the Azure nebula fleet with transphasics as soon as possible? Changes nothing to the admirality's incompetence.
As for the thalaron wepon - its used was already prohibited due to a moral argument with ehnough holes in it that the entire borg fleet could pass through.

About the thalaron weapon - I presented it as powerful - or as weak - as Nemesis and Destiny presented it.

And about the outcome - yes, considering the VERY small number of allied ships, the borg could have passed through - but not before losing thousands of ships; the allied fleet, if it played its hand right - as in, use simultaneous thalaron discharges to take out hundreds/thousands of cubes at one time - had a good chance to stop all the cubes.
In any case, thalaron weapons or transphasics would have allowed the allied fleet to retreat.

 

[Thrawn]

^ Ok. I disagree with every one of your conclusions there, but even granting them, the last three paragraphs of my post still stand. You're fond of endlessly repeating yourself, so allow me to do the same:

The point of the trilogy was that the Federation couldn't win. That's no different, even in your imaginary rewrite of it. You're just complaining about wind speed of the hurricane.

Would you have been happier if a Thalaron weapon destroyed 2,000 Borg cubes, and then 7,000 more emerged afterwards and the entire rest of the book was the same? How about if a Thalaron weapon destroyed 7,000 and then 70,000 more emerged? It's not like the Borg were some real thing that only had a certain amount of resources; the author was making it up. He made the force large enough to represent an overwhelming undefeatable quantity. If he'd decided to let Thalarons work, he would've just made it larger, so it still represented an overwhelming undefeatable quantity.

He could have imagined all kinds of different tactics, but the point of the story was that they all failed, or would fail. That's it. It would have changed nothing, except adding a whole bunch of extra unnecessary scenes where people come up with more pointless ideas. It would've distracted from the narrative drive, and added nothing to the trilogy.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

Thrawn

My point is NOT that the federation should have won using thalaron or other weapons.

My point is that the federation should have tried to use these weapons at its disposal, instead of giving up - essentially, we were presented a federation who lost that trekkian 'never say never' spirit, a federation who gave up even trying (with rare exceptions - who, what do you know, won their battles - Dax, SCE, etc).
Picard was an example in microcosm of this depiction - broken, defeated. Most of starfleet wanted only a dignified death, not even trying to innovate because 'it wouldn't work'; the government was equally defeatist.
All this runs counter to star trek's humanism.

 

[Commander_Kaz]

"Full Circle" wasn't a bad book in itself, it was just.... dismal. Utterly dismal.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

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.

Which brings us another reason it wouldn't have worked, everyone was expecting to and planning to fight a s@#tload of Borg in the Delta Qundrant until the tunnels could be taken out. Nobody seemed to expect an all out invasion and figured the on to a few ships the Borg were sending in each wave was what their plan was. Nobody expected the Borg to send that many cubes at one time.

 

[Thrawn]

Thrawn

My point is NOT that the federation should have won using thalaron or other weapons.

My point is that the federation should have tried to use these weapons at its disposal, instead of giving up - essentially, we were presented a federation who lost that trekkian 'never say never' spirit, a federation who gave up even trying (with rare exceptions - who, what do you know, won their battles - Dax, SCE, etc).
Picard was an example in microcosm of this depiction - broken, defeated. Most of starfleet wanted only a dignified death, not even trying to innovate because 'it wouldn't work'; the government was equally defeatist.
All this runs counter to star trek's humanism.

But that's exactly my point - it didn't matter how many battles they won, they were going to lose the war. That was the point. You want to add some number of battles to the "won" side, but no matter how much of that Mack had decided to add (and I think he added plenty - Dax, SCE, etc, as you mention) the Federation would still have lost the war and had to turn to the Caeliar.

Mack wrote tons of examples of people winning battles. Sure, he could have written more. When they were giving up at the VERY END, it was with the knowledge that no amount of battles would be enough. No one gave up in any sense of the word until after the attempt to have Hernandez take over as queen.

 

[ProtoAvatar]

This single loss was healded as a disaster even after 'Destiny' when we know from DS9 that the federation lost ~100 ships in battles before and took it in stride.

During her address to the Federation at the end of the book, President Bacco makes a comment about how Starfleet had never completely recovered from the Dominion War. So they weren't at their full strength even before the Borg Invasion started, and then there were all the ships that had been lost the the lead-up to the big battle in the Azure Nebula.

The Klingons had been split by a major insurrection (cf The Left Hand of Destiny), the Romulans had been fighting amongst themselves for a year previously (and even still, it seems like Donatra was willing to commit a large force to the fight, even though neither of the Romulan states had been threatened), the Cardassians were still rebuilding, and the Orions, Breen, Gorn, and even the Ferengi are minor powers at best.

So - the borg caught the alpha/beta quadrants at their weakest and that's why the Azure nebula loses hit the federation/everyone so hard.

It doesn't change the fact that many battles of the dominion war saw similar losses; in other words, the Azure nebula ship graveyard is far from unique, there's nothing extraordinary as far as its size goes.

 

[Thrawn]

^ Except that, afterwards, there were still over 7,000 enemy ships on the way to the Federation. It took that many losses to win the Dominion War; that many losses happened in the first 30 seconds of the Borg invasion. That's why it hit them so hard - they couldn't win.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Deal with it.

You can't use "Full Circle" to argue that an incident in "Destiny" was not believable!

You deal with it!

All this runs counter to star trek's humanism.

As does using thalaron on the Borg drones. Hence the dramatic tension.

 

[Thrawn]

Well, they did describe exactly the same scene, Therin.