Just Finished Reading "Children of the Storm" ...

[Deks]

I think the idea of fighters supporting capital ships makes 0 sense in Trek.
Shuttles can easily fill that role if there's a need for it.
The only part where I've seen such small sized crafts being usable in combat were in 1 episode of Ds9 where a runabout was able to exploit a jem'hadaar bug weakness and destroy it (it would have been useless without the traitor Weyoun though), and Voyager episode Tsunkatse (where the Delta Flyer was able to assist Voyager in knocking off the transmission arrays from the ship whose shields were already depleted and was able to damage it enough so it's weapons can get through- then again, we don't know just how powerful weapons onboard the Flyer are).

As I said... fighters make no sense... shuttles can already fill that role nicely since they have a compliment of weapons, shields... everything.
If you want to make them more battle-ready though, fine, SF can always modify them, and it's easier since they already probably have a gazillion of them.

Aside from that, fighter type crafts would essentially do very bad against capital ships and go down really fast, unless they have superior shielding technology allowing them to survive long enough to inflict some damage - after the capital ships got their turn).

 

[BrotherBenny]

Obviously someone at Command thought there was a use for them, whatever it might be. Instead of out-of-universe speculation, speculate in-universe what they might be used for.

I think they might be useful as long range scouts. They might be small enough and with stealth shielding so they wouldn't show up on sensors so they could scope out something and report back without being seen.

They could provide additional protection to shuttles, or act as protection to damaged shuttles if a starship can't reach them in time.

 

[captcalhoun]

they can act as forward recon, they can act as close air aupport for a team on the ground if they've got better weapons than a shuttle. they can swarm an enemy vessel from multiple axes of attack which one ship can't do. being much smaller and more manoeuvrable, they're less likely to get hit.

they might be better for sneaking a single person on to a hostile planet than a shuttle...

 

[Christopher]

I think they might be useful as long range scouts. They might be small enough and with stealth shielding so they wouldn't show up on sensors so they could scope out something and report back without being seen.

They could provide additional protection to shuttles, or act as protection to damaged shuttles if a starship can't reach them in time.

Then maybe "scout," "escort," or "courier" would be a better name for that type of ship than "fighter."

And the problem with the "long-range scout" idea is, again, that there are no horizons in space. This is something that Earthbound writers, including Trek writers, often have trouble realizing. They're used to living in an environment where faraway places are out of their direct line of sight and have to be visited in order to be observed. But we can see galaxies billions of light-years away just by looking with a big enough telescope. We're starting to get good enough resolution to detect planets around other stars. Eventually telescopes might get good enough that we'll be able to make detailed maps of planets dozens or hundreds of light-years away.

Now, if we were dealing with a universe like Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, where ship can travel FTL but signals can't, then you'd need scout ships to get current information about distant locations -- for instance, if you were on Earth and wanted to know what was happening on Tau Ceti now rather than a dozen years ago. In effect, time would be your horizon. But Trek has FTL sensors. We've seen that ships are able to get realtime information about events happening parsecs away. Something like the Argus Array can get detailed sensor images of planets that are whole sectors away, so there's no theoretical limit to how much resolution a powerful enough subspace telescope/sensor is capable of. And presumably subspace sensors operate at the same speed as subspace radio, which, as we know, is far faster than warp drive.

Then again, I suppose if this kind of long-range subspace detection technology exists, there would be countermeasures developed. Efforts to use subspace sensors to gain realtime (or nearly so) data on distant enemy outposts or ships could be stymied if the enemy is generating subspace interference. In that case, physically going there and scoping it out using more conventional, speed-of-light sensors might be the only way to gather intelligence.

they can act as forward recon, they can act as close air aupport for a team on the ground if they've got better weapons than a shuttle. they can swarm an enemy vessel from multiple axes of attack which one ship can't do. being much smaller and more manoeuvrable, they're less likely to get hit.

But there's nothing in that list that couldn't be done by an unmanned drone. We're already increasingly using UAVs for such tasks today.

 

[BrotherBenny]

So Chris, why would there be fighters in Trek?

I don't know if Kirsten was asked to put them in or if she did it of her own accord, but they're there so why shouldn't we speculate on what they could be used for.

 

[Sandoval]

Fighters on ships are cool and vaguely homoerotic. Just watch Top Gun.

 

[Christopher]

So Chris, why would there be fighters in Trek?

That's what I've been asking.

 

[Sandoval]

...so why shouldn't we speculate on what they could be used for.

We can. Popping to the shops. Sending annoying crewmen out in them to be used as target practice.

The possibilities are endless.

 

[captcalhoun]

UAVs are all well and good, but as any Modern Warfare 2 player can attest, they can be jammed, hijacked or destroyed. granted a fighter could be destroyed, but if it's got a sentient pilot who can realise that, 'oh, shit, there's a photon torpedo launcher station over there, i need to bug out', they're more likely to survive than some remote piloted craft, where signal time-lag could be crucial.

 

[Relayer1]

I enjoyed it, but not as much as the previous two books. It's not the fault of the plot or execution - it was very well done, but I missed the sweep and breadth of its forerunners. It just seemed a little as though the cast are now all in place and we can get on with the exploration now.

A good read, well done, but I hope for a little more primary character background development and character progression next time...

 

[BrotherBenny]

Isn't that what Star Trek is all about? The exploration?

I felt CotS was actually the strongest of three Beyer Voyager novels and the strongest Voyager novel overall.

What exactly did you dislike about it?

Not every book should cover a huge amount of time.

 

[Christopher]

Actually, if you count the flashbacks, Children of the Storm covers several more weeks than Unworthy (since it actually overlaps Unworthy by about three weeks).

 

[Relayer1]

Isn't that what Star Trek is all about? The exploration?

What exactly did you dislike about it?

Yes, exploration is part of it, but not the most appealing part to me. For example, I have read the Titan novels but they are not my favourites - I love DS9 above all else and exploration was not the main theme there.

Ms Beyer has done remarkably well to take a rather underwhelming series and some substandard continuation novels and turn them into a novel series with real depth and quality. There was nothing I didn't like. I just didn't like it quite as much as the previous two...

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

The backstory I imagined for the fighters was that Picard was so impressed by the one he stole in Nemesis, he recommended the idea to Command. Couldn't they also be useful for surrounding a planet?

 

[Relayer1]

You have to take into account that technology has moved on in the Trek universe - slipstream drive cannot be the only development. Although there may well have been compelling reasons why fighters would not be viable in the past, things could have changed.

Taking the basic technology of a runabout as a starting point, it would not be unreasonable to assume that building a smaller craft around the runabout impulse / warp / weapons capabilities would produce a more potent combat vehicle. Lower mass would mean higher speed, more maneuverability and less power demands to shields, life support, structural integrity fields and inertial dampers.

The advent of more powerful power plants while keeping the warp core size down could in fact give enough excess to enable formidable shielding and phaser capability. For short periods (i.e. combat) the powerplant could even be run above tolerances usual for prolonged use giving even more 'punch'.

This way a fighters offensive capabilities may be comparable to a single phaser emitter on a capital ship whilst defensively, shield strength (over only a small craft remember) would be excellent and a fast fighter would be difficult to hit at close range.

In a stand off fight they may still be vulnerable, but launched near their target for close space combat, atmospheric use or ground support they could be very useful. A dozen such fighters could bring a lot of firepower to bear, and from multiple vectors. I would think they stood a good chance against a larger vessel with equivalent armament, and with risk limited to one or two crew per vehicle.

I'd like one...

 

[Christopher]

^But again, how do any of those advantages require a manned craft rather than a drone?

 

[Relayer1]

^But again, how do any of those advantages require a manned craft rather than a drone?

The only answer I have to this point is an 'in universe' one that in Trek, remotely piloted or AI control seems unpopular.

I must admit that 'real world' starfighters may not be much of an asset. Trek universe - well...

Anyway, I've spun this off into its own thread as it's a bit beyond I've just read CotS !

 

[Mage]

Isn't that what Star Trek is all about? The exploration?

The exploration of humanity, yes. Not so much space. There have been episodes and books of all the series that have delt with exploring humanity without even exploring one cubical inch of space.

 

[14thDoctor]

^But again, how do any of those advantages require a manned craft rather than a drone?

They don't necessarily, but Starfleet probably has a strict policy against automated attack drones after the M5 debacle.

 

[Christopher]

^But again, how do any of those advantages require a manned craft rather than a drone?

They don't necessarily, but Starfleet probably has a strict policy against automated attack drones after the M5 debacle.

Who said anything about automation? I'm talking about remote-controlled craft, like present-day UAVs.