Well we do know one starship survived the BAttle of Wolf 359. 40 were assembled (BOBW) 39 destroyed (The Drumhead?). But no doubt the Borg would consider the lifeboats not a threat and the survivng ship migh have been too badly damged to figt so not a threat.
Are lifeboats generally practical?
- Thread starter Hando
- Start date
Well we do know one starship survived the BAttle of Wolf 359. 40 were assembled (BOBW) 39 destroyed (The Drumhead?). But no doubt the Borg would consider the lifeboats not a threat and the survivng ship migh have been too badly damged to figt so not a threat.
Not on sight, no. Again, they gave them that ultimatum and ordered them to surrender and escort them to Earth. The fleet responded by opening fire, and the Borg responded by curb-stomping the lot of them.
It certainly did, up to a point. For example, it initially focussed its attention on the Melbourne, crushing the ship's forward hull with a tractor beam and only then turning its attention on the Saratoga. Later in the same fight, Locutus' attention lingers on the Saratoga as he momentarily ignores phaser fire from the Yamaguchi and the Bellerophon.
This fits with the Borg's overall MO in dealing with boarding parties: they will ignore you until they recognize you as a threat. Nor did they appear to be going out of their way to chase down Starfleet ships in that engagement; quite the opposite, the fleet at Wolf-359 flew directly at the cube, hitting it with everything they had, trying to stop it.
Picard did warn Starfleet "If you attempt to intervene, we will destroy you." The Borg were being precisely true to their word, both with the fleet and with the Enterprise.
Strictly speaking, they DID leave Saratoga adrift. It's just that they left her adrift in such a condition that the ship wound up exploding three minutes later. The other ships in the fleet were probably much luckier, and a few might even have been salvageable eventually.
Except for various times when plot has required them to be.
The only ships that could have would have been the Endeavor, and she was probably not back up to power and flying on her own yet. The rest of the fleet was hopelessly disabled/destroyed with battle damage and were too busy trying to rescue their OWN survivors.
I don't see how you would claim that this is "typical" when we see two other starships destroyed much more rapidly in that same battle. The next closest thing to Saratoga's demise was the attack on the Enterprise, and in this case their goal was to capture Picard.
It's possible there was something on Saratoga the Borg thought might be useful and they took their time extracting it before it exploded. Otherwise, they would have simply crushed it like they did the Melbourne and tossed it aside.
Correction: he wanted SARATOGA to be processed, though not exactly in great detail. Few if any of the others were destroyed so thoroughly, and it is unlikely the Borg spent such a large amount of time processing them.
And yet we know for a fact that there WERE survivors, including at least one starship. Enterprise didn't detect them from the few scans they did, and the simplest explanation is that they simply didn't have enough time to do a thorough search for survivors.
Why? The Enterprise also survived and buzzed around the battlefield while the Borg did nothing. Not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES.
Except that, again, the battlefield was NOT empty of survivors, nor had they been paying "exceptional attention" to the ships that attacked them. Indeed, in "The Emissary" we see the Bellerophon and the Yamaguchi using phaser fire to distract the Borg away from Saratoga, an effort which ultimately fails when Locutus himself ignores them and focusses on Saratoga. Moreover, at least two other ships are also destroyed while the disabled Saratoga is locked in that tractor beam; that is three vessels whose on-screen deaths are seen to be relatively short.
Saratoga is therefore the exception, not the rule. It suggests 90% of the time, the Borg will either kill you on sight or completely ignore you. The other 10% of the time, they will grab you, slice your ship to pieces and extract something they have identified as a useful component.
We don't know if 40 is different from 39, though. Might well be that exactly 39 ships were present, and all were lost - or that 46 ships were present and seven survived. 40 is a round number that only represents one stage in the summoning process, and Admiral Hanson may have been rounding up or down and/or managing to get more ships later on.
Which is how the Borg attack. They could have skipped all that and simply flown to Earth; they stopped instead and picked a fight. ST:FC shows and tells a different story, with mere seconds being involved in the Borg passage through the barricade at Typhon, after which there apparently is a warp chase and then a fight at Earth orbit while the Cube supposedly steadily proceeds towards its target at sublight.
"Up to a point" doesn't really matter for discussing the ultimate outcome. Even nobodies like the Bonestell did get the destructive treatment ultimately; it would be odd indeed for any ship to avoid it altogether, or be allowed to putter around suitably wounded and pick up survivors, either towards the tail end of the battle or after the firing had ceased.
For the first few seconds, yes. Hanson then referred to an attempt at regrouping, but this obviously counted for nothing, as the Borg still destroyed those 39 ships. Either they did withdraw and were hunted down anyway, or withdrew and reattacked and were lost there, or never withdrew. The end result still was at least a near-complete massacre, which actually suggests complete massacre for the same price.
Nope - the tractor beam is still there until the grand finale.
Ah, no - we're never told any starship would have survived the battle.
There's a starship named Ahwahnee in existence and service after the battle, but no real evidence that this ship would have been in the battle, even though a model with that name was used for shooting the aftermath scenes. After all, a model with the name Alka-selsior was also used, and we don't use that as evidence that such a starship existed and was present.
Not this battlefield. As we can see from comparison with ST:FC, the Wolf 359 battle must be treated as its own scenario, not some scale model of the single-ship encounters where the E-D suffered a fate different from those of the Wolf 359 defenders.
But it was. Our heroes say so, and we have zero reason to disbelieve them.
There is no requirement for Sisko and his lifepod to be anywhere near the battlefield by the time our heroes assess the situation. There's no requirement for them to be aboard a "surviving" starship, or any other starship, either. Sisko survived, and other lifepods may have survived as well; yet others may have been captured or destroyed. But this doesn't mean the Borg didn't do a thorough job as regards the actual battlefield.
Timo Saloniemi
And yet Sisko's pod still needs to have both survived the battle and left the area before USS Enterprise arrived to conduct a life signs scan.
Perhaps the pod could make it several hundred thousand kilometers outside the area and beyond what Enterprise was scanning. Maybe the pod was low warp capable and was heading to Andor having made it several light-hours away already.
Or maybe there was at least one surviving starship that pickup survivors before Enterprise arrived, and had since left the system. Recall that as well as Starfleet personel as Borg in the Delta Quadrant, there are Klingons as well. Romulans too, but we know of Romulan colonies that were dug up just like Federation colonies, we don't know of any Borg encounters with the Klingons other that Hanson's mention of the Klingons sending ships to help at Wolf 359. We saw no identifiable Klingon wreckage at the battle, nor any in the bits with USS Saratoga. However they could has still made it in time and wouldn't be counted on the list of Federation starships lost in the battle.
Perhaps the pod could make it several hundred thousand kilometers outside the area and beyond what Enterprise was scanning. Maybe the pod was low warp capable and was heading to Andor having made it several light-hours away already.
Or maybe there was at least one surviving starship that pickup survivors before Enterprise arrived, and had since left the system. Recall that as well as Starfleet personel as Borg in the Delta Quadrant, there are Klingons as well. Romulans too, but we know of Romulan colonies that were dug up just like Federation colonies, we don't know of any Borg encounters with the Klingons other that Hanson's mention of the Klingons sending ships to help at Wolf 359. We saw no identifiable Klingon wreckage at the battle, nor any in the bits with USS Saratoga. However they could has still made it in time and wouldn't be counted on the list of Federation starships lost in the battle.
Let's suppose you have a warp-capable ship and you are suitably close to Wolf 359 to go there and pick up survivors. Would you?
If you know there was a battle there (and especially if you happen to be a survivor), you also know that mankind is facing the final curtain. Your basic options are to do something about saving Earth, or do something about saving mankind. For the former, it took Riker little time to decide on a course of action available to anybody with a warp-capable vessel. But why pick up survivors before ramming the Borg? For the latter, retreating to the far corners of the universe with enough Adams and Eves would be the way to go. But why risk them and the future by stopping to collect corpses and not-yet-corpses from the battlefield?
Okay, say you decide to let somebody else save the day. You warp in and pick up survivors. What do you do next? Probably you should contact somebody about what you did, so that nobody else attempts to. You believe the Borg are gone and won't return, otherwise you wouldn't have come. So why go silent and deep? Is your cloaking device not getting enough frequent fleer hours? Why don't you tell the E-D or Earth?
Timo Saloniemi
If you know there was a battle there (and especially if you happen to be a survivor), you also know that mankind is facing the final curtain. Your basic options are to do something about saving Earth, or do something about saving mankind. For the former, it took Riker little time to decide on a course of action available to anybody with a warp-capable vessel. But why pick up survivors before ramming the Borg? For the latter, retreating to the far corners of the universe with enough Adams and Eves would be the way to go. But why risk them and the future by stopping to collect corpses and not-yet-corpses from the battlefield?
Okay, say you decide to let somebody else save the day. You warp in and pick up survivors. What do you do next? Probably you should contact somebody about what you did, so that nobody else attempts to. You believe the Borg are gone and won't return, otherwise you wouldn't have come. So why go silent and deep? Is your cloaking device not getting enough frequent fleer hours? Why don't you tell the E-D or Earth?
Timo Saloniemi
When we saw the Battle of Wolf 359 in Emissary it was not 39 ships attacking in unison- we saw the first handful to arrive attacking as they got there. The Endeavor might have been late to party and saved as many people as they could, departing before the Enterprise showed up. Collecting escape pods, beaming injured trapped in broken hulls might have taken some time, but we never did know much time passed from the battle to when we saw the drifting wreckage when Riker arrived.
I seem to recall that subspace interference was causing communication problems. Also ship damgage may also prevent long range communications. Going by what was heard in "Redemption Part 2", Endeavor was the last ship to leave the yard just a year later. If she was heavily damaged but survived, it is possible she pickup survivors and limped away from battle as low warp, or high sublight. She could have turned back after the Borg left the area and picked up survivors. However with limited warp capability should would logically not be able to pursuit the Borg, and if communications are out she could not warn Enterprise or Earth. At that point she'd be heading to either the regroup point, or the next closest base that wasn't Earth. Gather another group of ships and attack again in strength. Enterprises goes into the face of dread alone all the time. Most rational captains would regroup, gather a new fleet and attack again. Earth would be under attack or gone, but they could prevent more Federation worlds from falling.
Implying that the Borg would have attacked them ANYWAY if they had collectively answered the Borg "No thanks, we'll just watch from here."
That's not how they operate, really. "If you attempt to intervene, we will destroy you." Starfleet explicitly chooses "intervene" and the Borg respond by "Destroy you." It's not until the Borg Queen starts running the show in Voyager that they start doing their inexplicable mustache-twirling nonsense.
A battle which begins with a Federation admiral ordering "All units, open fire."
The easiest way to avoid getting killed by the Borg is not to fight them in the first place. The problem with the Borg is they don't always give you a choice. Sometimes they do, and WHEN they do, they leave you alone until you make a ruckus (confirmed by everyone who has ever beamed aboard a Borg cube ever).
There's still the Drumhead reference, to be sure. That's suggestive at least.
Even more telling is the identity of Sisko's rescuers. SOMEBODY picked them up from space other than the Enterprise, and they didn't fly back to Earth on their own.
Yes, this battlefield. They were still in Wolf-359 when they recovered Picard from the cube. The Borg didn't go to warp until AFTERWARDS.
And yet the battle in First Contact has much the same dynamic, considering the Borg didn't go out of their way to hunt down wayward starships that had challenged it. In fact, they didn't even press their attack on the Enterprise after it interrupted their destruction of the Defiant (probably because Enterprise fell back to take Defiant's survivors and was thus no longer a tactical priority).
It's HIGHLY unlikely they would have aggressively chased and destroyed survivors if the fleet had chosen to simply fall back out of range. The reason for the total destruction of the fleet is that none of them -- save one, probably Endeavor -- actually bothered retreating.
No. It wasn't.
Other than the fact the escape pods do not have warp drive and could not have traveled any appreciable distance in the time it took for Enterprise to arrive there. For that matter, the BORG hadn't even traveled that far in the same amount of time.
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That's just the point, though: we can choose to believe in surviving starships (even though none are ever mentioned) or we can believe in lifepods that have certain propulsive or stealth abilities (which are not seen onscreen). Both are possible interpretations of the Wolf 359, and I just want to point out that the latter is the one that would make lifeboats practical in the general case.
As for how the Borg deal with Starfleet resistance, we see two different cases. Dialogue is irrelevant: you will be bypassed - that is, if the Borg are on their way to Earth and don't want to stop, as in ST:FC. So if they do stop, it's a sign that they wanted to, as in "BoBW", and Starfleet actions or dialogue had nothing to do with it.
Timo Saloniemi
As for how the Borg deal with Starfleet resistance, we see two different cases. Dialogue is irrelevant: you will be bypassed - that is, if the Borg are on their way to Earth and don't want to stop, as in ST:FC. So if they do stop, it's a sign that they wanted to, as in "BoBW", and Starfleet actions or dialogue had nothing to do with it.
Nope - the Cube came out of warp when the recovery operation began. So the possibilities are that they went away and then came back, or that Wesley actually obeyed Riker at the battle site when the temp skipper said "set a course that follows those currents [the Borg trail]", and launched the E-D to warp chase, part four and counting. I have no doubt the recovery operation took place somewhere between Wolf 359 and Earth...
Timo Saloniemi
The latter would be more practical, but is also that much less likely. Partly that's because "being practical" is not something that's generally associated with Trek tech
but mainly because that implies certain technologies being built into lifepods that, if they existed, would render shuttlecraft and possibly even starships impractical as we currently understand them.You keep saying that, but they're not actually different cases. They're the exact same case: the Borg tell them not to interfere, Starfleet interferes, the Borg destroy them. You may recall that this was a uniform feature in ALL of their encounters from Q Who through First Contact. The only difference in the situation appears to be that the fleet in First Contact managed to survive a LOT longer and were still in the fight when the cube arrived at Earth. Strictly speaking, this is similar to the Starfleet action in Best of Both Worlds, if you consider the Enterprise to be a part of the Borg Interception Fleet.
The only variable seems to be why the Borg actually dropped out of warp at Wolf-359 in the first place. There are many potential reasons for this, but "Let's stop and destroy a bunch of starships" is unlikely to be one of them.
I suggest you watch that part again. I recall being very confused as to why the shot of the Borg cube has no "warp speed" effects present before Locutus sees the Enterprise approach on the big screen and realizing it's because the cube left the battle at impulse power and not at warp.
What technologies would do that? A drive system on par with Type 7 shuttles would already allow the pod to escape E-D attention, as per "Q Who?" where the search of Picard is initially futile yet this fact does not make our heroes jump to the conclusion that Q or other things beyond shuttlecraft capabilities are involved. And the Saratoga pod is a big thing compared with Type 7. As for stealth, we have many examples of our heroes employing varying degrees of "silent mode" against their adversaries, many of which should be available to a shuttlecraft as well.
Having both lifepods and shuttles adds no complications to a reality where several types of shuttlecraft already coexist aboard a given starship. "Warp drive plus fifty uncomfortable seats" is worth having alongside "warp drive plus two comfortable ones plus room for a tricorder" and "warp drive plus three comfortable seats plus room for a SUV".
Nothing requires shuttles or lifepods to be capable of competing with starships in terms of propulsion. Although VOY sometimes suggested that shuttles might be fast enough for that, those instances are easily handwaved, even when assuming most of the shuttles had lesser performance than the canonical warp four of the (unseen) Type 9.
Not true at all. At Wolf 359, all or nearly all opposing starships are destroyed before the Borg move on. At Typhon, we learn of no destroyed starships before the Borg move on. Indeed, the Defiant seems to be there from start to finish, if we believe the walla.
Add to that the timing cues: at Wolf 359, the Borg came to a standstill, delivering an unhurried speech, while at Typhon, mere seconds passed from spotting of the enemy to breaching of blockade and nothing indicated the Borg even slowed down from their usual high warp. (Although again one wonders why the Borg opted for high warp rather than transwarp...)
In military terms, those are two completely different doctrines, one concentrating on destroying the enemy, the other concentrating on reaching a destination. In general, such doctrines would be mutually exclusive, even if they aren't quite that in quite this case.
Why? It's the only bunch around, so destroying it when it has so politely presented itself for sacrifice is only prudent. Nothing much would be gained by waiting until Earth, a choice that is the Collective's to make.
Will have to rewatch... Sorry about the Alzheimer attack if applicable!
In any case, the Borg did leave E-D sensor range in that time, too, save for the eddy trail thing.
Timo Saloniemi
For starters:
- The capacity to equip a spacecraft for meaningful interstellar travel without the use of a warp drive.
- The capacity to evade TNG-style omniscient sensors without specialized stealth systems
- The capacity to transmit legible signals over vast interstellar distances with minimal hardware
If on a deep space expedition you abandon ship in a shuttlecraft with low-warp capability, you can planet-hop between habitable or semi-habitable planets on short trips that last a couple of weeks or months, stopping to replenish your food/water supply along the way. It would be real pretty to think that you could accomplish this exact same feat in an escape pod... but then, if an escape pod was capable of this, it wouldn't be an escape pod, it would just be a shuttlecraft.
All of this is to say that SHUTTLECRAFT are very practical as evacuation implements in the event of a disaster, and it would be wise for a starship to carry enough shuttles to evacuate everyone if it came to that. And yet, having shuttlecraft with that sort of capability cannot be justified from a hardware standpoint if their ONLY job is to evacuate the crew in the event of a disaster. Nor would the existence of such craft even BEGIN to make sense in a universe where both Starfleet officers and their adversaries have had to go to some elaborate lengths to reach their starship's shuttlebay, passing by literally DOZENS of small semi-warp-capable escape pods in the process.
There's the fact that abandoning ship in a lifepod is essentially a death sentence unless the lifepod is capable of carrying the crew to a safer location. In space, "safer location" automatically implies FTL capability, which IS competitive with starships.
Enterprise wasn't. And arguably neither was the Endeavor.
Would the Borg have destroyed the Enterprise if Riker had six other ships with him?
All of these are already part and parcel of the Trek universe. Shuttles travel at warp - "without the warp drive" is a meaningless distinction one cannot apply on any of the lifepod designs we see, considering all the designs we have seen that assuredly have warp. Our heroes regularly make life difficult for the sensors of their advanced arch-enemies by manipulating a ship's warp field, running silent or whatnot, and OTOH spend their sweet time locating lifepods even when those assuredly are present. And signals do travel in Trek, although I fail to see the relevance.
And? Real-life lifeboats are just boats.
You still don't want to have just any boat hanging from your davits for evacuation purposes. There are boats and there are boats; I see little reason why this would change for the Trek version of our future.
Only "Equinox" ever comes to mind, and there it would make a crucial difference whether the Starfleet officers cum adversaries would reach a shuttlecraft with lifeboat qualities or a shuttlecraft with certain other qualities - shielding, weaponry, a slight speed edge, whatever helped them survive. If James Bond tried to escape Blofeld's cruise ship, he wouldn't head for the lifeboats or the shore transfer shuttles, either, but would fight his way to the MOB boat with its superior engines and agility.
That makes no sense. Should starships be discontinued because shuttlecraft exist? Because private prospector craft exist? Because passenger liners (supposedly) exist? Just having FTL drive is no grounds for claiming "competition".
That aside, lifepods easily could be of the sort that only save people if launched next to habitable planets. In the Trek environment, carrying such gear would be worth the while, as habitable planets are everywhere and the difference between next to one and not being next to one is a matter of hours at worst rather than centuries if the mothership still has her regular drive capabilities. That there would also exist situations where such pods would be of no help would be an insufficient reason for leaving them ashore.
She never was at the Wolf 359 battle, so that's irrelevant to the argument of how the Borg behaved in that battle.
As for the Endeavour thing, it sounds profoundly silly to associate her Borg experiences with Wolf 359 when obviously a lot of Borg activity is ongoing within Starfleet's areas of responsibility. Picard has three or four "petty" encounters with them, in addition to two major battles; the difference between those is really minimal because only one Borg ship is opposing him in each case. Amasov could have had "petty" or "major" dealings with the Borg just as much as Picard did, somewhere outside the boring old Wolf 359 context.
Timo Saloniemi
Yes, this is the basic argument for a lifeboat possessing warp drive.
Again, yes.
No and this is why.
Lifeboats would have a very limited utility, while you would be able to refer to them as little "starships," they would not be a full meal deal. Likely they would uncomfortable, cramp, no transporter, limited replicator, limited offensive/defenses capacities. Realistically after a short time period they'd smell pretty bad inside too.
Now in a pinch they probably could be used as a shuttlecraft, but the idea that they could in some way replace a full size starship is absurd.
I mostly agree with T'Girl.
The central issue here is how you define "escape pod" and "shuttlecraft", in any era of TREK.
We know that a presumably standard compliment of four shuttlecraft are typically in-service aboard Constitution-class starships during TOS. ("The Omega Glory")
But is this really definitive? It doesn't seem to rule out the possibility that the components used to make up multiple shuttle crafts could be kept in storage in a disassembled state. Shuttlecraft in TOS always looked like kit-vehicles to me; plenty of seams and parts and modules all snapped together. I could just see the bellypans of Class Fs all stacked together in a storage hold, roofs and nacelles piled together the same, so that if additional shuttlecrafts were ever needed, the crew could assemble them. As for how much time and power that would take to activate a fleet of them, well...
Suffice it to say that Galloway expected to find only four operational shuttlecraft available on the hangar deck. That doesn't mean that other additional shuttlecraft couldn't be made operational, given enough time, personnel and energy.
Having said that, it seems peculiar that, even in the TOS era, that an "escape pod" or "lifeboat" would not have sufficient ability to "escape". If we assume that there are such detachable pods in use aboard Federation starships (and/or other deep space vessels), and that such pods are capable of landing on nearby planets, and most importantly, that such pods rely on a system of power that would not drain on the mothership's power in a time of emergency, then why can't there be such pods with limited warp capability? Consider this:
"The Menagerie, Part I":
While it is by no means clear that Federation starships in the TOS era used embedded escape pods in time of emergency (the crew of the Starship Constellation didn't use any before they died; and Franz Joseph Schnaubelt never saw fit to mention any such pods in his schematics from the 1970s), it does appear that if they did use prefabbed, flight-ready escape pods, there was a means of powering them with at least limited warp capability. (If an ion-powered Class F shuttlecraft can manage at least minimal warp speeds, why couldn't an escape pod?)
(NOTE: it would seem ideal for shuttlecraft and/or escape pods to use power technology different from that of a starship's matter-antimatter system, as these small crafts would be expected to make planetfall on a regular basis.)
If you would've asked me about this in the 1970s, I would've said "The primary hull of a starship is its lifeboat. It can detach and land, right?" I would imagine even the Reliant, prior to being commandeered and put into combat, could jettison her nacelles and land. Much of this would be suggested or otherwise indirectly inferred by "The Apple", the 1975 Tech Manual or the Star Fleet Officer's Manual.
Having said all that, there's nothing in TOS or TAS or TMP to categorically rule out the notion of escape pods. We just never heard them mentioned, just as we never heard anyone mention the handy option of using shuttlecraft in "The Enemy Within" and the notion was not seen until "The Menagerie, Part I", and "The Galileo Seven" afterwards.
One thing has to be kept in mind: Federation starships are "built Ford tough". They have a nasty habit of coming back from the dead, with a little bit of coaxing from a ballsy, half-wit captain and a can-do engineer. The Constellation was thought to be a "dead hulk", but Scotty and Kirk managed to get her underway, engage briefly in combat, raise her shields and ultimately use her as a flying bomb to kill the otherwise unstoppable Planet Killer machine. I would expect that starships are designed and built to allow their crews to survive a host of disaster scenarios, even if the ship is disabled.
The Constellation is the case-in-point again. Kirk would not tell Commodore Decker "we'll take her in tow" and offer to "stay on-board and get her ready" unless he saw something in the wreck that could be salvaged. Even if Constellation's warp drive was dismissed as "a hopeless pile o' junk", this doesn't dismiss the possibility that Constellation (under better circumstances) could be towed out of the asteroid field, given basic minimal repairs, and equipped with a minimal warp engine rig to allow her to retreat to the nearest port for either recycling or refit-for-service.
I say this because, even if a starship is "stopped in space" far from a home port or other safe haven, her normal operations ceased, that doesn't mean "game over" for the crew. They have shuttlecraft and photon torpedoes on board. Even if the ship is left with minimal power and capabilities, I do not see what is to stop a ship's crew from finding a way to at least restore partial capacities to escape being adrift and doomed. Let's assume that escape pods/lifeboats are essentially ion-powered shuttlecraft, embedded in the ship's hull, for emergency escape purposes only. There's one means of (probably low-warp) escape if necessary. But if the starship's main nacelles are too battered to make it back to port, this doesn't mean the crew has to eject in escape pods. Even assuming the secondary hull and nacelles cannot be restored without a space dock, I don't see what there would be to stop a crew (assuming enough time and personnel) of a Constitution-class ship from salvaging enough components from the secondary hull and nacelles to build a small pair of provisional nacelles so the saucer ("lifeboat") could be detached and make it to a home port or a nearby habitable world at minimal warp. Of course, if the saucer herself is also damaged, then the lifeboat notion may be out the window as well. Still, if the starship has enough shuttlecraft (or kits of same) and/or escape pods intact, then they become the "lifeboat".
I would say that the lack of mention of escape pods in "The Doomsday Machine" and "The Omega Glory" is conspicuous, though. There were two major opportunities to use such pods, and there was never any mention of them (or the shuttlecraft) being applied at all.
As for all the discussion thus far about the Battle of Wolf 359. We only see fragmentary indications of what actually happened. In "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II", we see a relatively calm but busy Admiral Hansen field-promoting Riker to captain. At that time, he bragged that he has assembled a fleet of 40 starships. We know from part I, Hansen was already amassing his squadron at Wolfe 359. He also brags that "the Klingons are sending warships... we've even considered opening communications with the Romulans!" LaForge tells the admiral that the Enterprise is expected to be restored in 8 to 12 hours. Note that this is before Hansen even sees the Borg coming.
In the next teleconference, we see a rattled Admiral Hansen saying "the fight does not get well, Enterprise. We're attempting to withdraw and regroup. Rendezvous with Fleet..." and then he is cut-off.
"The Best of Both Worlds", parts I and II, is fragmented and a little confusing. There is the suggestion, not clearly confirmed, that, from the time Picard orders an escape from the Poulson Nebula to the time the Borg are stopped at Earth, is less than a day. But in part I, Hansen clearly warns Picard that "the nearest help is six days away". This suggests that the travel time at Warp 9.6 from the environs of Jouret IV/New Providence to Earth is six days. So take your pick. There are indications aplenty either way: either Earth and "one of the Federation's outer-most colonies" are six days apart at maximum warp, or maybe only a day or so. Continuity has as many holes as the Albert Hall from where I sit.
In DEEP SPACE NINE's "The Emissary", we see the Starship Saratoga and a few other ships, including a Nebula-class vessel, an Oberth-class and an Excelsior-class, exchange fire with the Borg. We never see more than a few Federation starships on the TV. Is this the entire Battle of Wolfe 359?
We see the Enterprise-D pull up alongside a bunch of derelict starships, obviously casualties of the Borg counter-attack. Is this the remains of the Battle of Wolfe 359?
Why must we accept that a battle between a Borg ship and a fleet of highly mobile, warp-capable Federation starships had to all take place at once, in one location? If Admiral Hansen was ordering withdrawal and regrouping in front of Riker during the teleconference, there's nothing to preclude the possibility Hansen had already done that before. It is entirely possible that the Battle of Wolfe 359 was actually a series of engagements involving at least 40 starships, with direct engagements taking place along the Borg ship's path. We only saw a handful of starships directly engage in "The Emissary". It's entirely possible the Saratoga was destroyed at the site of the first skirmish, with others to follow along the Borg's course.
I agree with others that it is possible that the Borg ship did suffer damage. This may have slowed the Collective's progress between skirmishes. If the Borg succeeded in stopping the first wave (Saratoga among them) and Hansen ordered a withdrawal and regrouping a light-day down the line, he could've been doing that because more ships were arriving (possibly more Federation ships, or even the Klingons) and he would've had a stronger force for the next volley. But with the Borg, this would be a terrible mistake. It would give them time to analyze the last attack, the tactics used, and adapt their defenses for the next engagement. Most importantly, it would also give the Borg time to regenerate and improve if necessary, making them even more dangerous at each succeeding engagement.
If the Battle of Wolfe 359 took place over the span of several light-years, with 39 ships destroyed (at least) after several skirmishes, it is possible that at least 40 starships were involved, and possibly many other support ships watching nearby, ready to assist any damaged ships left behind. The Borg likely never deviated from their planned course, or not by much.
There is nothing in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" or "The Emissary" to absolutely establish that all 39 starships were KIA'd in one static place. Data never confirmed the number of ships in the debris field. If the battle was a series of skirmishes along the Borg's planned flight path, it is entirely possible the Borg left the scene of each succeeding skirmish after disabling/destroying each attack force, and support ships closed in from behind to rescue survivors after the Borg continued to move forward.
The central issue here is how you define "escape pod" and "shuttlecraft", in any era of TREK.
We know that a presumably standard compliment of four shuttlecraft are typically in-service aboard Constitution-class starships during TOS. ("The Omega Glory")
But is this really definitive? It doesn't seem to rule out the possibility that the components used to make up multiple shuttle crafts could be kept in storage in a disassembled state. Shuttlecraft in TOS always looked like kit-vehicles to me; plenty of seams and parts and modules all snapped together. I could just see the bellypans of Class Fs all stacked together in a storage hold, roofs and nacelles piled together the same, so that if additional shuttlecrafts were ever needed, the crew could assemble them. As for how much time and power that would take to activate a fleet of them, well...
Suffice it to say that Galloway expected to find only four operational shuttlecraft available on the hangar deck. That doesn't mean that other additional shuttlecraft couldn't be made operational, given enough time, personnel and energy.
Having said that, it seems peculiar that, even in the TOS era, that an "escape pod" or "lifeboat" would not have sufficient ability to "escape". If we assume that there are such detachable pods in use aboard Federation starships (and/or other deep space vessels), and that such pods are capable of landing on nearby planets, and most importantly, that such pods rely on a system of power that would not drain on the mothership's power in a time of emergency, then why can't there be such pods with limited warp capability? Consider this:
"The Menagerie, Part I":
While it is by no means clear that Federation starships in the TOS era used embedded escape pods in time of emergency (the crew of the Starship Constellation didn't use any before they died; and Franz Joseph Schnaubelt never saw fit to mention any such pods in his schematics from the 1970s), it does appear that if they did use prefabbed, flight-ready escape pods, there was a means of powering them with at least limited warp capability. (If an ion-powered Class F shuttlecraft can manage at least minimal warp speeds, why couldn't an escape pod?)
(NOTE: it would seem ideal for shuttlecraft and/or escape pods to use power technology different from that of a starship's matter-antimatter system, as these small crafts would be expected to make planetfall on a regular basis.)
If you would've asked me about this in the 1970s, I would've said "The primary hull of a starship is its lifeboat. It can detach and land, right?" I would imagine even the Reliant, prior to being commandeered and put into combat, could jettison her nacelles and land. Much of this would be suggested or otherwise indirectly inferred by "The Apple", the 1975 Tech Manual or the Star Fleet Officer's Manual.
Having said all that, there's nothing in TOS or TAS or TMP to categorically rule out the notion of escape pods. We just never heard them mentioned, just as we never heard anyone mention the handy option of using shuttlecraft in "The Enemy Within" and the notion was not seen until "The Menagerie, Part I", and "The Galileo Seven" afterwards.
One thing has to be kept in mind: Federation starships are "built Ford tough". They have a nasty habit of coming back from the dead, with a little bit of coaxing from a ballsy, half-wit captain and a can-do engineer. The Constellation was thought to be a "dead hulk", but Scotty and Kirk managed to get her underway, engage briefly in combat, raise her shields and ultimately use her as a flying bomb to kill the otherwise unstoppable Planet Killer machine. I would expect that starships are designed and built to allow their crews to survive a host of disaster scenarios, even if the ship is disabled.
The Constellation is the case-in-point again. Kirk would not tell Commodore Decker "we'll take her in tow" and offer to "stay on-board and get her ready" unless he saw something in the wreck that could be salvaged. Even if Constellation's warp drive was dismissed as "a hopeless pile o' junk", this doesn't dismiss the possibility that Constellation (under better circumstances) could be towed out of the asteroid field, given basic minimal repairs, and equipped with a minimal warp engine rig to allow her to retreat to the nearest port for either recycling or refit-for-service.
I say this because, even if a starship is "stopped in space" far from a home port or other safe haven, her normal operations ceased, that doesn't mean "game over" for the crew. They have shuttlecraft and photon torpedoes on board. Even if the ship is left with minimal power and capabilities, I do not see what is to stop a ship's crew from finding a way to at least restore partial capacities to escape being adrift and doomed. Let's assume that escape pods/lifeboats are essentially ion-powered shuttlecraft, embedded in the ship's hull, for emergency escape purposes only. There's one means of (probably low-warp) escape if necessary. But if the starship's main nacelles are too battered to make it back to port, this doesn't mean the crew has to eject in escape pods. Even assuming the secondary hull and nacelles cannot be restored without a space dock, I don't see what there would be to stop a crew (assuming enough time and personnel) of a Constitution-class ship from salvaging enough components from the secondary hull and nacelles to build a small pair of provisional nacelles so the saucer ("lifeboat") could be detached and make it to a home port or a nearby habitable world at minimal warp. Of course, if the saucer herself is also damaged, then the lifeboat notion may be out the window as well. Still, if the starship has enough shuttlecraft (or kits of same) and/or escape pods intact, then they become the "lifeboat".
I would say that the lack of mention of escape pods in "The Doomsday Machine" and "The Omega Glory" is conspicuous, though. There were two major opportunities to use such pods, and there was never any mention of them (or the shuttlecraft) being applied at all.
As for all the discussion thus far about the Battle of Wolf 359. We only see fragmentary indications of what actually happened. In "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II", we see a relatively calm but busy Admiral Hansen field-promoting Riker to captain. At that time, he bragged that he has assembled a fleet of 40 starships. We know from part I, Hansen was already amassing his squadron at Wolfe 359. He also brags that "the Klingons are sending warships... we've even considered opening communications with the Romulans!" LaForge tells the admiral that the Enterprise is expected to be restored in 8 to 12 hours. Note that this is before Hansen even sees the Borg coming.
In the next teleconference, we see a rattled Admiral Hansen saying "the fight does not get well, Enterprise. We're attempting to withdraw and regroup. Rendezvous with Fleet..." and then he is cut-off.
"The Best of Both Worlds", parts I and II, is fragmented and a little confusing. There is the suggestion, not clearly confirmed, that, from the time Picard orders an escape from the Poulson Nebula to the time the Borg are stopped at Earth, is less than a day. But in part I, Hansen clearly warns Picard that "the nearest help is six days away". This suggests that the travel time at Warp 9.6 from the environs of Jouret IV/New Providence to Earth is six days. So take your pick. There are indications aplenty either way: either Earth and "one of the Federation's outer-most colonies" are six days apart at maximum warp, or maybe only a day or so. Continuity has as many holes as the Albert Hall from where I sit.
In DEEP SPACE NINE's "The Emissary", we see the Starship Saratoga and a few other ships, including a Nebula-class vessel, an Oberth-class and an Excelsior-class, exchange fire with the Borg. We never see more than a few Federation starships on the TV. Is this the entire Battle of Wolfe 359?
We see the Enterprise-D pull up alongside a bunch of derelict starships, obviously casualties of the Borg counter-attack. Is this the remains of the Battle of Wolfe 359?
Why must we accept that a battle between a Borg ship and a fleet of highly mobile, warp-capable Federation starships had to all take place at once, in one location? If Admiral Hansen was ordering withdrawal and regrouping in front of Riker during the teleconference, there's nothing to preclude the possibility Hansen had already done that before. It is entirely possible that the Battle of Wolfe 359 was actually a series of engagements involving at least 40 starships, with direct engagements taking place along the Borg ship's path. We only saw a handful of starships directly engage in "The Emissary". It's entirely possible the Saratoga was destroyed at the site of the first skirmish, with others to follow along the Borg's course.
I agree with others that it is possible that the Borg ship did suffer damage. This may have slowed the Collective's progress between skirmishes. If the Borg succeeded in stopping the first wave (Saratoga among them) and Hansen ordered a withdrawal and regrouping a light-day down the line, he could've been doing that because more ships were arriving (possibly more Federation ships, or even the Klingons) and he would've had a stronger force for the next volley. But with the Borg, this would be a terrible mistake. It would give them time to analyze the last attack, the tactics used, and adapt their defenses for the next engagement. Most importantly, it would also give the Borg time to regenerate and improve if necessary, making them even more dangerous at each succeeding engagement.
If the Battle of Wolfe 359 took place over the span of several light-years, with 39 ships destroyed (at least) after several skirmishes, it is possible that at least 40 starships were involved, and possibly many other support ships watching nearby, ready to assist any damaged ships left behind. The Borg likely never deviated from their planned course, or not by much.
There is nothing in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" or "The Emissary" to absolutely establish that all 39 starships were KIA'd in one static place. Data never confirmed the number of ships in the debris field. If the battle was a series of skirmishes along the Borg's planned flight path, it is entirely possible the Borg left the scene of each succeeding skirmish after disabling/destroying each attack force, and support ships closed in from behind to rescue survivors after the Borg continued to move forward.
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Well, if we look at what the Okuda/Sternbach technical manual tells us about the lifeboats:
The manual specifies a number of other things which seperate the lifeboats functions from those of a shuttlecraft, including the lifeboat having a kind of modular ability to connect to other lifeboats and create a larger sustainable enviroment.
In a circumstance like that seen in First Contact, perhaps the idea is that the craft can land on a planet and then effectively become kind of like a 'tent city' on the surface: a series of modular living containers that can be deployed in the event of a short term evac to a planet turning instead into a long term stay. Something shuttles may be less equipped for? Shuttles are really more like miniature starships, runabouts even moreso, whereas the lifeboat is seemingly more like a detachable compact living quarters with a small scale propulsion system and landing gear attached to it...
I'd say that lifeboats are meant to augment other emergency evac procedures, including transporters and shuttlecraft, rather than being a viable option in themselves (and of course, it's possible that there aren't enough shuttlecrafts for everybody on board anyway, so it might be necessary to evac a larger number of people in lifeboats, while a smaller crew in shuttles go off to get help).
The manual specifies a number of other things which seperate the lifeboats functions from those of a shuttlecraft, including the lifeboat having a kind of modular ability to connect to other lifeboats and create a larger sustainable enviroment.
In a circumstance like that seen in First Contact, perhaps the idea is that the craft can land on a planet and then effectively become kind of like a 'tent city' on the surface: a series of modular living containers that can be deployed in the event of a short term evac to a planet turning instead into a long term stay. Something shuttles may be less equipped for? Shuttles are really more like miniature starships, runabouts even moreso, whereas the lifeboat is seemingly more like a detachable compact living quarters with a small scale propulsion system and landing gear attached to it...
I'd say that lifeboats are meant to augment other emergency evac procedures, including transporters and shuttlecraft, rather than being a viable option in themselves (and of course, it's possible that there aren't enough shuttlecrafts for everybody on board anyway, so it might be necessary to evac a larger number of people in lifeboats, while a smaller crew in shuttles go off to get help).
Shuttles have warp drive. The installation of which requires a certain amount of engineering overhead.
You're suggesting the Enterprise-D carrying something in the neighborhood of 160 warp-capable escape pods?
Which lifepods do not have, unless they have warp drive.
Yes. Not skiffs, not yachts, not speedboats, not trawlers. There's a limit in their capabilities because it isn't practical to fit lifeboats for long-distance travel or substantial engine performance. They're really just shelters to be used until rescue shows up (many ships actually make due with inflatable rafts).
Fitting every lifeboat on a starship with a warp drive is a bit like equipping every life raft on an aircraft carrier with a helicopter engine and a GPS. It's a nice idea, but it's not technically feasible.
OTOH, if you were absolutely certain that your aircraft carrier is going to be operating in an ocean the size of the Jupiter and the nearest help is around two weeks away, you might as well make sure the carrier has enough aircraft to actually transport the crew to a safer location instead of just leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere.
And also "Basics Pt I." And also that stupid episode where Seven thought the Borg were calling her but it was just her dad's ship. Also "The Search Pt I" where Odo drags Kira into a shuttlecraft instead of grabbing a lifepod. Also "Deja Q " where Q steals a shuttlecraft instead of a lifepod. Also "The Hunted" where you're supposedly stealthy and undetectable lifepods are not considered as a means of getting off the ship. Also "Descent Pt I" where Data and Borg-Rambo steal a Type-15 shuttle instead of taking a lifepod.
Shuttlecraft are generally preferred in every situation where you have a choice. This is because lifepods are vastly inferior to shuttlecraft in terms of performance, capability, maneuverability and survivability. Thus they are exactly the kind of craft you do NOT want to be stuck in when your ship is exploding in interstellar space.
I would simply grant that lifepods may be perfectly practical if you are trying to abandon ship in the vicinity of an M-class planet (e.g. First Contact) and only need enough propulsive capability to change orbits and land. But an emergency in deep space? Forget it.
No, because shuttlecraft are only capable of extremely limited FTL travel despite the fact that they are equipped with genuine warp drives. Runabouts are also limited, but to a degree that they are ALMOST competitive with starships.
Lifepods become competitive for the complete lack of engineering overhead. If it were possible to strap a warp drive to the equivalent of a flying winnebago, Kassidy Yates would literally be a truck driver, not a freighter captain.
Yes she was. Just late. Also, Enterprise encountered the Borg BEFORE the Wolf-359 battle and managed to attract its attention far more thoroughly than any of the other ships. When the Borg had what they wanted, they again left the Enterprise rather than destroy it. When Enterprise caught up with and attacked it again, the Borg shrugged off their assault and AGAIN left the Enterprise without destroying it.
This is three different times that Borg refrained from destroying the Enterprise when it would have been trivially easy to do so, and then with plenty of provocation. There's no reason for them to act any differently to the fleet than they do to the Enterprise, unless every ship in the fleet continues to attack rather than retreat or accept their temporary defeat. It also stands to reason that at least one of the Wolf-359 starships probably tried to RAM the Cube rather than let it pass unmolested.
Please don't make things up off the top of your head and then claim they are "obvious." That's kind of irritating.
Pretty much agree with all of this, except I'm suddenly reminded that the TNG manual's depiction of the lifeboats has never actually been borne out in canon (the few we do see don't look anything like it). From the very small number of canon reference to "escape pods" and from Sisko's use in "The Emissary" it's actually possible that a very small number of pods could be used to evacuate the entire crew (in Saratoga's case, three or four) in which case those "escape pods" would basically be hardened runabouts with an extra layer of protection.
The flipside is the evacuation in "First Contact." Enterprise doesn't launch anywhere near its full complement of escape pods, or even half for that matter. This is either because the Borg have assimilated the majority of the crew (oops!) or because each of those pods can actually carry 20 to 40 people and a few of them are loaded entirely with cargo and survival gear.
Last but not least, there's the one-person escape pod from STXI, which is used to maroon Kirk on Delta-Vega but isn't a viable option to evacuate the ship in STID.
All taken together -- and combining with Starfleet's propensity to multitask -- I'm thinking that lifepods actually make a lot more sense if they also have a very valuable non-emergency usage. Say, as containers for relief supplies that cannot/should not be deployed by transporter (drop the pods in orbit, let them parachute automatically down to survivors waiting on the surface) or, in wartime, as a way of quickly deploying troops when transporters aren't reliable. Ships like Saratoga might even use them as rescue craft to recover people from extremely hazardous environments (and might explain Saratoga's overall mission anyway: Starfleet's equivalent of a coast guard cutter).
Let us stir the pot!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-vyuVREpLA/VML1SvI7yOI/AAAAAAAAUxk/W7WYNZE6sJE/s1600/P548_4.jpg
It's the escape pod launched from the Saratoga. First time I've seen the model in such detail.
Of note, there seem to be some clear thrusters off the "aft" end of the thing. The actual footage from the episode does not clearly indicate which end is supposed to go first, as in one shot two pods look to be heading with the rounded end first, but the second may have the other end going first.
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x01/emissary042.jpg
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x01/emissary044.jpg
In any case, the set that Sisko and the other survivors are sitting in definitely does not match the model, as the windows are much larger and a different shape on the set (however the general placement is similar). Also, if the one Sisko is in is remotely like the model, then the two blue-suited pilots don't have a direct window. Glass shifted to the side for the Officer's variant, obviously.
Mark
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-vyuVREpLA/VML1SvI7yOI/AAAAAAAAUxk/W7WYNZE6sJE/s1600/P548_4.jpg
It's the escape pod launched from the Saratoga. First time I've seen the model in such detail.
Of note, there seem to be some clear thrusters off the "aft" end of the thing. The actual footage from the episode does not clearly indicate which end is supposed to go first, as in one shot two pods look to be heading with the rounded end first, but the second may have the other end going first.
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x01/emissary042.jpg
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x01/emissary044.jpg
In any case, the set that Sisko and the other survivors are sitting in definitely does not match the model, as the windows are much larger and a different shape on the set (however the general placement is similar). Also, if the one Sisko is in is remotely like the model, then the two blue-suited pilots don't have a direct window. Glass shifted to the side for the Officer's variant, obviously.
Mark
If you remember, I'm suggesting that escape pods are meek, stealthy things that stay vewy vewy quiet in the aftermaths of big battles.
But I have absolutely nothing against the idea of the E-D sporting several hundred warp auxiliaries. The ship certainly sports much more impressive things already!
The idea that warp drive would be something awfully expensive to build or maintain is not supportable in Star Trek at all. Everybody and his idiot clone travels in a personal warp shuttle or trading vessel or scout or whatnot. Primitive species go FTL before they learn to listen to subspace radio. When a TNG hero wants to travel to a distant star system and back, his method of choice is a porta-pot with two warp nacelles.
It would be wholly consistent with all the rest of Trek if escape pods and survival suits were individually capable of FTL travel. But it's not a scenario we need to believe in to explain all the witnessed uses of lifepods. It's merely a scenario we do need to believe in to explain certain uses.
Generally speaking, the basic tenet "X is too difficult or expensive for Trek" must be abandoned immediately in the face of the slightest evidence to X actually existing there. After all, by "common sense", things like transporters or holodoctors are certainly too difficult or expensive, but Trek reality says otherwise loud and clear. And arguing to the contrary would be like saying that the internet can't exist because personal computers are too expensive - a rational analysis that still is dead wrong simply because the universe is weird.
Speaking of which...
Actually, it would be pretty weird not to have GPS on each raft in the near future, as those things are dirt cheap, much cheaper than trying to provide the rafts with compasses and sextants. And "helicopter engines" are becoming surprisingly ubiquitous, too: it won't be too long before everybody everywhere in the western world (and probably elsewhere too) owns at least two helicopters. Small and automated, perhaps, but also in many ways more capable than those clumsy Sea Kings, and very useful to a castaway! As said, reality is weird.
EDIT: forgot this one...
I'd really appreciate an apology for that. There's nothing made-up about the OBVIOUS fact that, like I said, a lot of Borg activity is ongoing in Starfleet's realm. We get to see a lot of it; we get to see our heroes' reactions to it and a good idea of how commonplace it really is; and we get explicit dialogue mention of events we don't see. That being there on our screens and all is pretty much the definition of OBVIOUS, in this make-believe context of Star Trek.
Timo Saloniemi
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