Spoilers Beyond: The Swarm VS USS Vengeance

[psCargile]

So let's "in-universe" recap:

Edison is a MACO senior officer who gets merged with Starfleet and given command of the Franklin, grousing about it but not turning it down, putts around the local stars at on average Warp Factor 2, as warp 4 is likely just the top speed and not the cruising speed, gets lost and crashes the Franklin, probably because he makes a better field commander than a ship commander, is the last to survive and blames the Federation instead of taking responsibility, and maybe in light of events, he shouldn't have received the Franklin at all, a ship he forgets about, and thus he discovers alien technology and becomes a space vampire, ironically physically unifying with aliens to survive, which happens to be his beef against the Federation, which he feels needs to suffer in order to be strong like Great MACO Warrior, so he discovers he sitting on this alien bioweapon that's missing a key component, which he has to find, and he holds this grudge for over a hundred years when most people would give up and find something more productive to do, and he discovers the Enterprise has the weapon and is arriving at his backdoor to a space station which makes a tempting target, so he lures Kirk out with a fake-out, and destroys the Enterprise with swarm things instead of , say, using the transporter on the Franklin which slipped his mind and could have been repaired with alien tech, to get the bioweapon, and then instead of using his military training as a former officer in the MACO, where it should be expected that he had better tactical knowledge and home territory advantage, Kirk and company beat him with holograms and a motorcycle, and the Beasty Boys.

 

[Dilandu]

Basically yes. Well, the Beasty Boys part are, actually, technically accurate.

 

[Mytran]

The Transporter on the Franklin was designed for cargo transport - only the techy shenanigans of Scotty allowed it to be used for beaming living people.

I don't have a hard time thinking that Krall abandoned that old-style tech along with the rest of his former identity.

 

[publiusr]

Sheer firepower and nothing else held the Swarm at bay at Yorktown, so it must be decisive after all.
Timo Saloniemi

Well Vengeance was smaller than Yorktown. The station simply had too much mass to chop apart quickly.

I think the Ent-D's shields would have kept them out. Shields seem weak in the Kelvin timeline--as in Star Wars. A hit is a hit.

The Ent-D shields seem on a par with the ships from ID4, if not the Ori shields that can survive a capital ship ramming it.

 

[Skipper]

If anyone is interested, they rendered 250.000 swarm ships for the attack to Yorktown.
http://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/star-trek-beyond-justin-lin-simon-pegg/
Obviously I don't known if this represents the effective number intended by the writers...

 

[Serin117]

If anyone is interested, they rendered 250.000 swarm ships for the attack to Yorktown.
http://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/star-trek-beyond-justin-lin-simon-pegg/
Obviously I don't known if this represents the effective number intended by the writers...

....I want the render farm.

 

[psCargile]

The Transporter on the Franklin was designed for cargo transport - only the techy shenanigans of Scotty allowed it to be used for beaming living people.

I don't have a hard time thinking that Krall abandoned that old-style tech along with the rest of his former identity.

Yeah, but. . .access to alien tech.

 

[F. King Daniel]

First of all I'm sorry if I put this in the wrong section, but I'm a newbee so bear with me .

So, what's your take? Could have the USS Vengeance survive the first encounter with the Swarm (I mean the first time we see the Swarm, not that monstruos thing that attacked Yorktown)?

Thoughts?

Doubt it. Vengeance had drone weapons of it's own, but it had two. It had a bunch of weapons designed but never shown on-screen (they're described in the Starships Collection magazine) but I doubt they'd have made much difference.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Vengeance would be toast, just like Enterprise was, and for precisely the same reason.

It boils down to this: Starfleet's weapon systems are designed to deal with known military threats with conventional weapon systems.

Nonsense. It was a battleship -- the Enterprise was not. Khan was specifically "hired" as a one-man think tank to dream up what kinds of unknown threats might be out there ("I took a tactical risk and I woke that bastard up, believing that his superior intelligence
could help us protect ourselves from whatever came at us next."). I'm sure he could have easily imagined the swarm, based on e.g. the attack patterns of insects.

The Vengeance would use its drones to intercept them while it kept its distance (or ran circles around them with advanced warp). And one can imagine that its computer would be continually evaluating the situation by scanning the transmissions to determine weakness.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

(or ran circles around them with advanced warp).

The Enterprise tried that one and it didn't work big time.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

The Enterprise tried that one and it didn't work big time.

The Enterprise didn't have advanced warp capabilities. Because Marcus wanted to stop the Enterprise before he destroyed it, we never got to see the full extent of her weaponry. Khan almost destroyed it in 20 seconds when the weapons came back online. The Vengeance would be Raid to the Swarm's assault.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

The Enterprise didn't have advanced warp capabilities.

Which don't mean shit when they won't let you go to warp.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I'm sure he could have easily imagined the swarm, based on e.g. the attack patterns of insects.

COULD have, sure. it's far from certain that he DID.

The Vengeance would use its drones to intercept them while it kept its distance...

Vengeance only had two of them, and they wouldn't have lasted long against the swarm.

And one can imagine that its computer would be continually evaluating the situation by scanning the transmissions to determine weakness.

That's not something Starfleet computers have ever been capable of (it's the whole reason starships have science officers). Even M5 wasn't really able to do that when it went on its killing spree.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Vengeance only had two of them, and they wouldn't have lasted long against the swarm.

Spoiler

Plus I doubt the Vengeance had more firepower than Yorktown, and Yorktown's guns were still getting overwhelmed.

 

[Dilandu]

Guys, again: Venegeanse is SPACESHIP, not station. She could move (and Yorktown couldn't). I.e. she could just hold the distance and pound Swarm with her phasers until Kraal broke and flee (or until he would be evaporated).

 

[Cyke101]

grousing about it but not turning it down, putts around the local stars at on average Warp Factor 2, as warp 4 is likely just the top speed and not the cruising speed

This is something I appreciate about Pegg and Jung. The crew says that the Franklin was reported lost in the Gagarin Radiation Belt, and Scotty theorizes that it fell into a wormhole, which would explain how it so far on such a weak engine. Turns out that the Gagarin Radiation Belt was from an early S1 episode of Enterprise, meaning it was fairly close to Earth and thus could be reachable with the tech of that day (when Warp 2 was the norm for many Earth ships).

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Guys, again: Venegeanse is SPACESHIP, not station.

Which means it has weaker phasers.

She could move (and Yorktown couldn't). I.e. she could just hold the distance and pound Swarm with her phasers until Kraal broke and flee (or until he would be evaporated).

Because that worked so well for the Enterprise.

And no advanced warp capabilities don't do jack in this situation.

 

[Dilandu]

Which means it has weaker phasers.

Which means it could move.

Forget about the phasers. Their relative power means nothing. Any fixed installation that could not move could always be destroyed by simple RKV's, launched far beyond her weaponry range. In space warfare, the ability to actively move isn't just important - it's MOST important part. No matter, how perfect your shields are, or how good is your weapon - one kiloton rock, send against you on the 0.9c speed would turn you into the particle cloud, unless you could move out of her way.

Because that worked so well for the Enterprise.

The ambush against the Enterprise worked only because it was (by the plot stupidity) trapped in the planet gravity well, and unable to move immediately. If you recall the episode, one important part of Krall's plan was to lure the starships from the Yorktown. Generally because in open-space combat his drones were completely worthless against more or less mobile targets.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

The ambush against the Enterprise worked only because it was (by the plot stupidity) trapped in the planet gravity well, and unable to move immediately.

Actually it worked becuase they took out their warp drive, they out gunned them, and attempts to out run them didn't work.

one important part of Krall's plan was to lure the starships from the Yorktown. Generally because in open-space combat his drones were completely worthless against more or less mobile targets.

Yeah multiple starships from a starbase, i.e. leaving them with less firepower. The Vengeance is one warship not a fleet.

 

[Go-Captain]

Going by what we saw of the Vengeance it definitely could not fight the swarm. Its rate of fire is worse than Enterprise's, even withe the drones, and individual shot power is pointless against the swarm as all the ships die to one hit from Enterprise and Yorktown anyway. They cannot even use their torpedoes even though they should work just fine in proximity blast mode, but I think that comes down to the production team not having any concept of scale in space.

If we are talking what if, then I would say the Vengeance has a lot of untapped weapon potential we did not see, with the two giant space guns as just the tip. There are twenty hatches lining the saucer on the top and bottom which I imagine contain normal phasers for just such a saturation attack, probably as a defense against an even great Narada style missile spam. However, if it did have weapons like that, it would likely still fall to the swarm if it does not run in time. The swarm is too large, and shields in nuTrek have absolutely no effect.

gets lost and crashes the Franklin, probably because he makes a better field commander than a ship commander.

He got lost and crashed probably because his ship got sucked away by wormhole into an asteroid field which definitely takes sensors from a 100 years in his future to safely traverse.

is the last to survive and blames the Federation instead of taking responsibility

At least two of his crew survived to take the space chimera vampire immortality treatment, the grey guy who tells him to finish his mission, and the pink woman who ensnares Kirk. They are not random aliens he convinced to join him.

Edison is scared, confused, and angry over Earth voluntarily discarding its military power after surviving two wars in the space of five years thanks to its military power. He sees the abandonment of the military as a betrayal of his specices, and joining alien civilizations as making humanity vulnerable to outside control. The immortality treatment also crewed with his brain, likely making his beating-people-to-make-them-stronger and dismantling the system which established the things he doesn't like seem like a great idea.

instead of , say, using the transporter on the Franklin which slipped his mind

Beaming in is traditionally very detectable, and using non-human rated transporters is a good way to get immediately deadly mutations.

Well Vengeance was smaller than Yorktown. The station simply had too much mass to chop apart quickly.

Edison wanted the station intact for some reason. The bioweapon kills cleanly and in a very controllable manner. He probably could have left the weapon in a harmless state after wiping the station out, so other ships investigating the station would pick it up, spread it, and then it would activate on multiple worlds at once.

I think the Ent-D's shields would have kept them out. Shields seem weak in the Kelvin timeline--as in Star Wars. A hit is a hit.

The Ent-D shields seem on a par with the ships from ID4, if not the Ori shields that can survive a capital ship ramming it.

Shields should be non-existent in nuTrek for all the good they do.

I believe the Enterprise-D shields would work against the swarm exceedingly well, as would its phaser arrays. Each array can fire as many beams as needed at once, and since the swarm ships die easily to 23rd century weapons not much power will be required per shot. Their torpedoes would probably work too, so they could use proximity detonations to clear the swarm.