BOBW..the fleet?

[Cyke101]

And we're forgetting the strength of planetary defenses.

I would think they are the way Gene described them which would be
able to blow almost anything to dust if given the time to arm and fire.

Not as much need to waste resources or manpower of Starships to be
sitting around when you've got that, especialy in peacetimes and taking
into account the location of Earth within Federation borders.

Additionally, we don't know if those two "sub-thingies" as cited above constitute the whole of the defense perimeter; I think it's very plausible that when the line was mentioned, those two ships were all that were left after the Borg trashed the whole line. So I think it's just as fair to assume there was more to the defense perimeter than those ships.

There's even precedent for that sort type of inference in the very same episode: when the Enterprise reaches Wolf 359, we only saw a handful of destroyed ships (six, perhaps?), but somehow that was supposed to represent the full 39 ships destroyed. And we the viewers accepted that visual trick.

 

[AlanC9]

I would normally agree..however...Earth is like a major place right? Starfleet command is centered there. One would think there would be more forces, more ships, as you got closer to Earth.

Why? The US Navy doesn't keep major combat units anchored in the Potomac or the Hudson river, nor does the Air Force keep very many fighters anywhere near New York or Washington.

 

[Plecostomus]

I would normally agree..however...Earth is like a major place right? Starfleet command is centered there. One would think there would be more forces, more ships, as you got closer to Earth.

Why? The US Navy doesn't keep major combat units anchored in the Potomac or the Hudson river, nor does the Air Force keep very many fighters anywhere near New York or Washington.

And if we did need said fighters to stop an attack everything has to be routed trough the proper channels, there is going to be a lag between "threat detected" to "do something about it"

Also, space is vast its going to take awhile for ships to arrive even if the command to gather even after the command was issued . Those 40 ships could have just been the 40 closest ships, with more on the way. 40 high-powered ships that close to the homeworld is quite a big fleet actually.

 

[Braxton]

You'd think there would be a couple hundred ships in the Sol system at all times to provide defense for Earth. There may be a lot of planet-based weapons but there should also be orbital weapons as well like defense platforms and a few stations in orbit that have defenses of their own. Spacedock must loaded with weapons and should be quite powerful, more so than DS9 (I would guess at least 4 times stronger than DS9). Of course, one could argue that they should have ample time to detect enemy forces and should be able to intercept before they reach Earth. The defense of the core worlds may be setup where every system has maybe 50 ships and would scramble together into a fleet should the need arise. Since Earth wasn't attacked directly since the founding of the Federation, its possible Starfleet just got really complacent in terms of ship-based defenses and instead had more of their ships outwards from the core than they should have allowed. As we saw in "First Contact", 40 ships wouldn't do much to a Borg Cube anyway. It's entirely possible Starfleet dropped the ball with Wolf 359 and underestimated their enemy.

In DS9, you're talking about taking a peacetime fleet and making it a wartime fleet. They have to recall a significant number of ships from their exploration duties, recommssion any mothballed ships, quickly cannabilise ships to make new ones, perform massive upgrades on existing ships, and increase ship production all in just 2 years. Not to mention planetary defense upgrades (which were not completed on all worlds since it was stated that Betazed essentially had obsolete defenses when it fell).

 

[Cyke101]

You'd think there would be a couple hundred ships in the Sol system at all times to provide defense for Earth. There may be a lot of planet-based weapons but there should also be orbital weapons as well like defense platforms and a few stations in orbit that have defenses of their own.

There could be, but I'm not saying that just for the sake of the "what if." It's more along the lines of how Riker insisted that the moon had tons of cities on it, but every time we actually see the moon, it still looks largely uninhabited. Ultimately, on one hand, we have to take Riker for his word, but on the other hand, we just don't have the visual evidence to support him on that. It's weird.

Spacedock must loaded with weapons and should be quite powerful, more so than DS9 (I would guess at least 4 times stronger than DS9).

If size translates to power, as it mostly does in Trek anyway, then that sounds about reasonable to me, too.

 

[Timo]

It's more along the lines of how Riker insisted that the moon had tons of cities on it, but every time we actually see the moon, it still looks largely uninhabited. Ultimately, on one hand, we have to take Riker for his word, but on the other hand, we just don't have the visual evidence to support him on that. It's weird.

The lunar cities could simply be very conscious about light pollution, and thus invisible from space.

Of course, when we do see Luna, we almost invariably see its fully illuminated side. So no city lights would be visible to space anyway. One cannot see cities on Earth in daylight, either, not even from the relatively low orbit where our Trek camera usually lingers - and Luna would be way farther away from the camera than that.

Given how no star system in the Federation ever seems to sport a permanent starship presence, we might surmise one of two things. Either starships aren't particularly good at defending star systems (fixed fortifications might be so many orders of magnitude more powerful that ships would just get on the way), or the political situation of the UFP does not tolerate the permanent positioning of military forces near major planets. Ancient Rome considered it much too big a threat to keep permanent military units anywhere near the capital city, too. The risk of military dictatorship would be great - and even the risk of an accident or an isolated bout of lunacy could be unacceptable, when such an accident or incident involving a starship could devastate the whole planet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GodThingFormerly]

The Novelization Roddenberry wrote for TMP explained that there were huge phaser banks/turrets and millions of photon torpedoes as well as other defenses all on Earth for a space-based attack.

GR's novelization went into no such detail. All it said concerning the planetary defense systems (after V'ger shut them down) was:

"Until now, there had been at least the hope that the sheer weight of Earth and Lunar firepower and powerful forcefield protection might give Nogura bargaining power or at least some delay in which a better understanding could be worked out."

TGT

 

[Anwar]

I suppose that's the result of me only having read it once, 10 years ago...

 

[Cyke101]

It's more along the lines of how Riker insisted that the moon had tons of cities on it, but every time we actually see the moon, it still looks largely uninhabited. Ultimately, on one hand, we have to take Riker for his word, but on the other hand, we just don't have the visual evidence to support him on that. It's weird.

The lunar cities could simply be very conscious about light pollution, and thus invisible from space.

Of course, when we do see Luna, we almost invariably see its fully illuminated side. So no city lights would be visible to space anyway. One cannot see cities on Earth in daylight, either, not even from the relatively low orbit where our Trek camera usually lingers - and Luna would be way farther away from the camera than that.

That seems reasonable to me, though that's still along the lines of "We'll have to take a character's word on it," so people can assume certain things at their discretion, I think.

One small point: when Riker pointed out to Cochrane where certain lunar colonies and cities were, Riker basically acted as if you could see the cities from Earth during the daytime. And even if he didn't mean daytime, that those cities were still visible from Earth (and thus, an illuminated face).

 

[Maurice]

One small point: when Riker pointed out to Cochrane where certain lunar colonies and cities were, Riker basically acted as if you could see the cities from Earth during the daytime. And even if he didn't mean daytime, that those cities were still visible from Earth (and thus, an illuminated face).

That last sentence is rather confusing. But to clarify the point, the side of the Moon that faces the Earth goes through light and dark throughout the lunar month, so there are plenty of times when such cities might be seen as glowing from an Earthbound perspective. The "dark side of the Moon" is a literary conceit only, after all, as the far side of the Moon gets as much daylight as the side facing us.

 

[Cyke101]

One small point: when Riker pointed out to Cochrane where certain lunar colonies and cities were, Riker basically acted as if you could see the cities from Earth during the daytime. And even if he didn't mean daytime, that those cities were still visible from Earth (and thus, an illuminated face).

That last sentence is rather confusing. But to clarify the point, the side of the Moon that faces the Earth goes through light and dark throughout the lunar month, so there are plenty of times when such cities might be seen as glowing from an Earthbound perspective. The "dark side of the Moon" is a literary conceit only, after all, as the far side of the Moon gets as much daylight as the side facing us.

Oh, I'm aware of that there's no real "dark side." I just think it's odd that whenever we see the moon in Trek (even when Q brings it to Voyager!), we somehow always see the same empty lunar face, the face that supposedly has all those legendary lunar cities.

 

[Timo]

However, note what Riker actually says:

1) The 24th century Moon looks different.
2) The city of New Berlin is there.
3) You can see Lake Armstrong.

That is, Riker never says that one can see cities there. The only visible feature he refers to is this Lake Armstrong.

Now, we have to decide whether the part about "the Moon looks different" is fully accounted for by the part about "you can see Lake Armstrong". If not, then we are in some trouble. But if yes, everything is just dandy.

Now, how come we don't see Lake Armstrong? I can think of two explanations.

One, Lake Armstrong is a body of water, and thus reflects sunlight in a very distinctive manner - but only from certain angles, and we always happen to miss those angles.

Two, Lake Armstrong is the same as other lunar Lakes, a body of basalt, and is the result of impact, industrial accident, or WWIII - in any case a massive incident that changed the history of human habitation there. The historical significance of the Lake is thus so immense that its relatively small size does not matter: the 24th century eye can always spot it (or think it can spot it), but we will miss it.

Mind you, Riker need not have been truthful about the Moon looking different. He could just be bragging for bragging's sake - he's just as much a 24th century UFP propagandist as Picard is, never missing a chance to flaunt the superiority of his society. Or he could be deliberately teasing Cochrane out of his moral sturpor, hinting at the things to come. Or he could simply be expressing the spirit of things, quite regardless of the optical facts - akin to saying "You look so radiant today, Deanna!"...

Timo Saloniemi