Destiny Why did they not... BEWARE Spoilers

[Marie1]

Maybe this is OT... but... this conversation reminds me of the one from Hippocratic Oath- the moral duty of freeing the Jem'Hadar from enslavement vs the security risk of having Jem'Hadar free that could go on their own rampage and kill...

There is no easy answer, I don't think. There is a moral standard because some people have none. Its tricky in a military situation because sometimes for the sake of saving someone or a group, to have a victory, a commander must make a choice that violates his/er conscience. The Borg drones are all enslaved, but they are trying to enslave... but if people are willing to do just anything, kill anyone, go to any measure to save themselves... then you end up with a very dangerous surviving civilization. Still, since building the Tal. weapon would be to save not just the Federation, but the AQ, the BQ, and maybe even the GQ eventually (due to the wormhole too) then maybe the Romulans etc. would understand?

They would,but then follows the thought;"If Starfleet thalaron-ed the Borg when they were a threat ,will they thalaron us too when it suits them?"

Enter paranoia,stage left.

But just knowing what killed their counterparts wouldn't necessarily give them the ability to mimic it would it? If they all died at once, how much could they deduce, other than millions of voices suddenly silenced + maybe radiation? Are they that good? They may be able to adapt to it after, but building it as a weapon may be dangerous to them too... maybe.

 

[JD]

6. The problems with using the weapon:
b. It is temporary: Yes, be it 100 years, or two months. But the tactical situation can always change, even the strategic one. Many things can happen in two months or 100 years, with thousands of derelict Borg vessels floating around full of intel. For example, the Borg come back in 20 years, and run into Federation staffed Borg cubes filled with borg tech and new Federation tech. Well, can brute force win? Yes. Even if no solution is found, then you have time to evacuate the Federation, Memory Alpha, and and other allied world to any and everywhere, at least there is a better chance the civilization of the Federation survives somewhere.

The only problem with this idea is that if it did take years for the Borg to come back, then we would be that many years behind the Borg, so we'd still be screwed. Hell even if it was just a few months before they came back, there is still the chance that they assimilate some new advanced race and are able to make a sudden leap in technology.

 

[BillJ]

I got to tell you the attitudes of some people on this board really give me pause.

• 
  New Orleans gets hit by a Category 3 hurricane. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.
  
  Los Angeles gets hit by a 7.2 earthquake. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.
  
  Cincinnati gets hit by a F3 tornado. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.

While death is the truth of our individual existence... resilience seems to be a defining trait of humanity as a whole. Something bad will happen to all of us at one point or another... perhaps we should just hide under our beds and wait for the inevitable.


The Next Generation began its downward spiral with I, Borg. The Destiny trilogy seems to be the final nail in the coffin for me. I just don't think I can stomach anymore of Picard and Company coming down from the mountain to show us mortals the errors of our ways. Really, I just can't relate to these characters anymore.

 

[Marie1]

But those are all problems of the weather- not an enemy- they aren't a people/group of beings that can be reasoned with or defeated etc.

Unless some good levies can be built to prevent hundreds or thousands from drowning again, NO probably shouldn't be rebuilt.

Parts of CA are huge fault lines. You can't fix them. Don't live on them. If the activity gets bad, and looks permanent, things shouldn't be built on them.

Tornadoes are trickier, but I'd be willing to bet most people don't want to live where there is a lot of them, so the land is cheaper, so inevitably people end up there... in a danger zone.

But you can't "defeat" weather like you can with, in ST, most aliens.

What I liked about Destiny is that it wasn't Picard calling she shots, or entirely saving the day... it was many people... even if Dax bugs me... *grumbles* She reminds me of someone I know... LOL

 

[Sci]

I got to tell you the attitudes of some people on this board really give me pause.

• 
  New Orleans gets hit by a Category 3 hurricane. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.
  
  Los Angeles gets hit by a 7.2 earthquake. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.
  
  Cincinnati gets hit by a F3 tornado. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.

There's a big difference between rebuilding a community even knowing that it will continue to endure some natural disasters over the years that will inevitably result in the deaths of a percentage of the population, and deciding to pursue an ineffective tactic against a technologically superior force that is determined to drive your people into extinction.

That the Borg would succeed if the Federation had chosen to pursue a traditional military solution against them was not a possibility, nor even a probability: It was an inevitability. Pursuing traditional combat would be signing the Federation's death warrant. Why it is so hard for you to accept that violence would simply not be an effective defense against the Borg I don't know.

 

[BillJ]

I got to tell you the attitudes of some people on this board really give me pause.

• 
  New Orleans gets hit by a Category 3 hurricane. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.
  
  Los Angeles gets hit by a 7.2 earthquake. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.
  
  Cincinnati gets hit by a F3 tornado. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.

There's a big difference between rebuilding a community even knowing that it will continue to endure some natural disasters over the years that will inevitably result in the deaths of a percentage of the population, and deciding to pursue an ineffective tactic against a technologically superior force that is determined to drive your people into extinction.

That the Borg would succeed if the Federation had chosen to pursue a traditional military solution against them was not a possibility, nor even a probability: It was an inevitability. Pursuing traditional combat would be signing the Federation's death warrant. Why it is so hard for you to accept that violence would simply not be an effective defense against the Borg I don't know.

Well... I'm guessing since the Federation survived another sixteen years in an alternate timeline (or is it the original timeline) they were doing something that kept the Borg off their backs.

I'm guessing I'm like the batter that has a 3-2 count and sees a strike coming... even it it isn't my pitch I'm swinging anyway.

So... you didn't think Transphasic Torpedoes were a violent (traditional) option? Picard and company didn't seem to have any problems using those.

 

[Sci]

I got to tell you the attitudes of some people on this board really give me pause.

• 
  New Orleans gets hit by a Category 3 hurricane. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.
  
  Los Angeles gets hit by a 7.2 earthquake. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.
  
  Cincinnati gets hit by a F3 tornado. Why rebuild? It'll happen again... eventually.

There's a big difference between rebuilding a community even knowing that it will continue to endure some natural disasters over the years that will inevitably result in the deaths of a percentage of the population, and deciding to pursue an ineffective tactic against a technologically superior force that is determined to drive your people into extinction.

That the Borg would succeed if the Federation had chosen to pursue a traditional military solution against them was not a possibility, nor even a probability: It was an inevitability. Pursuing traditional combat would be signing the Federation's death warrant. Why it is so hard for you to accept that violence would simply not be an effective defense against the Borg I don't know.

Well... I'm guessing since the Federation survived another sixteen years in an alternate timeline (or is it the original timeline) they were doing something that kept the Borg off their backs.

I take it you are referring to the timeline that the alternate Janeway originated from in "Endgame?" In that timeline, the Borg had not decided to dedicate its resources to the eradication of the Federation. False comparison.

I'm guessing I'm like the batter that has a 3-2 count and sees a strike coming... even it it isn't my pitch I'm swinging anyway.

False analogy. Violence is not the only option in defeating the Borg; swinging the bat is the only option in winning a game of baseball.

So... you didn't think Transphasic Torpedoes were a violent (traditional) option? Picard and company didn't seem to have any problems using those.

The Borg adapted to the transphasic torpedoes. They were, at the end of the day, not an effective means of preventing the extermination of the Federation.

 

[BillJ]

I take it you are referring to the timeline that the alternate Janeway originated from in "Endgame?" In that timeline, the Borg had not decided to dedicate its resources to the eradication of the Federation. False comparison.

Source. Without a source we have no idea how many attacks the Federation withstood from the Borg or if there were any at all in the other timeline.

False analogy. Violence is not the only option in defeating the Borg; swinging the bat is the only option in winning a game of baseball.

Swinging the bat is not the only option. But if you don't swing it you're counting on the intervention of someone else (the umpire) to get you to base.

The Borg adapted to the transphasic torpedoes. They were, at the end of the day, not an effective means of preventing the extermination of the Federation.

So not the point and you know it. The Enterprise used more transphasic torpedoes than any other ship. Where were Picards 'morals' then? He seemed to have no problem trying to eradicate the Borg with future tech.

 

[Sci]

I take it you are referring to the timeline that the alternate Janeway originated from in "Endgame?" In that timeline, the Borg had not decided to dedicate its resources to the eradication of the Federation. False comparison.

Source. Without a source we have no idea how many attacks the Federation withstood from the Borg or if there were any at all in the other timeline.

1. Why are you italicizing "Federation" and "Borg?"

2. No, it's an established fact in the novels that the Borg decided to exterminate the Federation after Voyager destroyed their network of transwarp hubs in "Endgame." While it is true that we do not know how many Borg incursions the Federation suffered in the alternate timeline, we know for a fact that the Borg were not prompted to attempt to eradicate the Federation.

False analogy. Violence is not the only option in defeating the Borg; swinging the bat is the only option in winning a game of baseball.

Swinging the bat is not the only option. But if you don't swing it you're counting on the intervention of someone else (the umpire) to get you to base.

Another false analogy. Baseball is a game that is played by a system of rules and regulations that must be adhered to, even by the umpire. Conflict with the Borg is not -- it can take the form of violence, it can take the form of computer hacking, it can take the form of attempts to disambulate their ships, it can take the form of appealing to a technologically superior race to dissolve the Collective itself.

You keep thinking of conflict with the Borg in terms of violence, of traditional combat. You're limiting your thinking to terms that would inevitably get the Federation destroyed. You need to expand your concept of how to wage war.

The Borg adapted to the transphasic torpedoes. They were, at the end of the day, not an effective means of preventing the extermination of the Federation.

So not the point and you know it. The Enterprise used more transphasic torpedoes than any other ship. Where were Picards 'morals' then? He seemed to have no problem trying to eradicate the Borg with future tech.

I don't know who you think you're talking to, but my name is Sci and I've made it pretty clear that I consider the question of the morality of the thalaron weapon to be a) arbitrary (why is a thalaron weapon any more immoral than a photon torpedo when both would be considered to be weapons of mass destruction many times more powerful than a thermonuclear weapon?) and b) secondary to the primary question of the effectiveness of the weapons or tactics in question. You're going to need to argue with someone else if you want to argue about the relative morality of the thalaron weapon, because I'm more or less on your side in those terms.

 

[BillJ]

1. Why do you care?

2. Once again. What is your source for how events transpired in the other timeline. They developed transphasic torpedoes and batmobile armor for a reason.

You keep thinking of conflict with the Borg in terms of violence, of traditional combat. You're limiting your thinking to terms that would inevitably get the Federation destroyed. You need to expand your concept of how to wage war.

There were eight minutes left. Sorry, but the Federation should have re-evaluated it concepts of how to wage war the first time the Borg attacked the Alpha quadrant.

I don't know who you think you're talking to, but my name is Sci and I've made it pretty clear that I consider the question of the morality of the thalaron weapon to be a) arbitrary (why is a thalaron weapon any more immoral than a photon torpedo when both would be considered to be weapons of mass destruction many times more powerful than a thermonuclear weapon?) and b) secondary to the primary question of the effectiveness of the weapons or tactics in question. You're going to need to argue with someone else if you want to argue about the relative morality of the thalaron weapon, because I'm more or less on your side in those terms.

Sorry. You were Mister "I'll do it only if it is 100% guaranteed to work.", my mistake.

 

[CaptainGold]

Great conversation, a few points.


Legally, Picard, et.al. are shielded from legal reprecussions for what ever actions they take; using the weapon would be justified by UFP and Starfleet...

The Federation exists on the premise of ,in so many words,doing the right thing....

Once he made the decision to use the weapon he sold his soul(and arguably spat on the sacrifices his crew made against Scinzon) for the 'possibility' of saving the day.At that time there was no assurance a Thalaeron weapon would work from Picard's standpoint,and as covered above the weapon would at best delay the inevitable.


His wife and unborn son are on the Enterprise with him.Betting on a thaleron weapon seems a better deal than faith in an alien process:even more so with his family at stake.If the Caeliar plan failed or was rejected having the thaleron weapon allows Picard to rest easier knowing his family won't just die against a Borg assault-hell at least take a few Cubes down with him.

It's a classic situation of having faith in an unseen and unknown process(Hernandez proposing to the Caeliar),vs taking the quick and dirty out that makes a mess of things and doesn't fix everything (Thalaron weapon) .

Great post, obviously you thought this out well. But I have four quibbles with it, which are major differences:

1. You set this up as an either/or situation, and it is not. Hernandez won the day on a argument that was based on: A. The sympathy for the Borg, more importantly, B. the need for Caeliar culture to turn from its path to destruction, and C. The warning that if the Borg win today, they will come for you in time. So I submit to you that Picard has to think "both' not "either/or". The decisions made by the winners here were irrespective of Picard's decision/no-decision.
2. While there is a chance the Weapon might fail, I would argue that Picard had consider that using the weapon might fail, as opposed to not using it, the Caeliar failing, and the Federation will fail. Picard does not know what will happen, and if you have both faith and tools, you have a better chance to win, than just faith alone. We are talking about the total destruction of the populations of a major part of the galaxy here, in numbers so big it is hard to deal with. Your solution here is take the road that guarantees failure if the Caeliar fail, as opposed to the 2% chance of success if the Caeliar fail. If you really believe that this is how humans should act, then our world is in trouble.
3. This idea ignores the fact that others would be getting ready to use the weapon now no matter what Picard does. The Romulans would have used it, since they were the guys who first had a working model, at least. To believe that other, less moral cultures than the Federation would not hesitate to use the weapon is exactly how the US has gotten into wars all through this century, and the last one as well.
4. Sorry, there is no sale for Picard selling his soul in making the weapon. The author may try to sell that line, but all Picard has to do is think about trillions of innocents dying, and the ramifications of failure to the galaxy if the Federation falls. The "Butterfly analogy" works here too. His decision to hold to certain principles may keep his conscience clear, but if the result is 1/4 of the galaxy is a dead zone, is that morally right?
The author is trying sell a moral position full of holes here IMO.

I agree with you, faith is the most powerful tool a person has. But faith has many ways to be applied, not just putting your faith in one hope, when there are other alternatives out there.

Finally, in relationship to other posters, I need to shout: WHY DO YOU THINK POSTPONNING THE BORG"S VICTORY ONLY MEANS FAILURE LATER? So many of you who are posting here automatically assume the Borg will always win in the end if not for some miracle from some outside, higher power?

You are saying, "Don't use the weapons, because it won't work." Do you know that?
Another says: "if you postpone it, the Borg will come back even stronger, and we will be more behind." Really? How do you know that? The Federation has won every war or battle with the Borg up to this time. Cicumstances always change over time, and you cannot assume the guy with the bigger guns will always win, if that was the case the US would have won in Vietnam, the Soviets win in Afganistan, and the English win the American Revolution.

You can buy into the "Borg will always win senario", but that something you are adding to the setting of the Destiny Series, it is not in the books. That is a hole in the 1st book, I admit, because there is no way that any General Staff would take the view that Starfleet Command takes in this book towards use of the weapon, and the fact that we know nothing about what the thinking of the Romulans is opens the door to saying the Romulans decided to load their ships up with every weapon they had, including the radiation.

Thanks for posting, and thanks for reading my post.

 

[Silversmok3]

Great post, obviously you thought this out well. But I have four quibbles with it, which are major differences:

1. You set this up as an either/or situation, and it is not. Hernandez won the day on a argument that was based on: A. The sympathy for the Borg, more importantly, B. the need for Caeliar culture to turn from its path to destruction, and C. The warning that if the Borg win today, they will come for you in time. So I submit to you that Picard has to think "both' not "either/or". The decisions made by the winners here were irrespective of Picard's decision/no-decision.
2. While there is a chance the Weapon might fail, I would argue that Picard had consider that using the weapon might fail, as opposed to not using it, the Caeliar failing, and the Federation will fail. Picard does not know what will happen, and if you have both faith and tools, you have a better chance to win, than just faith alone. We are talking about the total destruction of the populations of a major part of the galaxy here, in numbers so big it is hard to deal with. Your solution here is take the road that guarantees failure if the Caeliar fail, as opposed to the 2% chance of success if the Caeliar fail. If you really believe that this is how humans should act, then our world is in trouble.
3. This idea ignores the fact that others would be getting ready to use the weapon now no matter what Picard does. The Romulans would have used it, since they were the guys who first had a working model, at least. To believe that other, less moral cultures than the Federation would not hesitate to use the weapon is exactly how the US has gotten into wars all through this century, and the last one as well.
4. Sorry, there is no sale for Picard selling his soul in making the weapon. The author may try to sell that line, but all Picard has to do is think about trillions of innocents dying, and the ramifications of failure to the galaxy if the Federation falls. The "Butterfly analogy" works here too. His decision to hold to certain principles may keep his conscience clear, but if the result is 1/4 of the galaxy is a dead zone, is that morally right?
The author is trying sell a moral position full of holes here IMO.

I agree with you, faith is the most powerful tool a person has. But faith has many ways to be applied, not just putting your faith in one hope, when there are other alternatives out there.

Finally, in relationship to other posters, I need to shout: WHY DO YOU THINK POSTPONNING THE BORG"S VICTORY ONLY MEANS FAILURE LATER? So many of you who are posting here automatically assume the Borg will always win in the end if not for some miracle from some outside, higher power?

You are saying, "Don't use the weapons, because it won't work." Do you know that?
Another says: "if you postpone it, the Borg will come back even stronger, and we will be more behind." Really? How do you know that? The Federation has won every war or battle with the Borg up to this time. Cicumstances always change over time, and you cannot assume the guy with the bigger guns will always win, if that was the case the US would have won in Vietnam, the Soviets win in Afganistan, and the English win the American Revolution.

You can buy into the "Borg will always win senario", but that something you are adding to the setting of the Destiny Series, it is not in the books. That is a hole in the 1st book, I admit, because there is no way that any General Staff would take the view that Starfleet Command takes in this book towards use of the weapon, and the fact that we know nothing about what the thinking of the Romulans is opens the door to saying the Romulans decided to load their ships up with every weapon they had, including the radiation.

Thanks for posting, and thanks for reading my post.

Understand that this response is based on the events and details in the book.

Picard was unaware of Hernandez's negotiation with the Caeliar.For all he knows she beams over and plays blackjack with Inyx until they get down to business.There was no concrete evidence the Caeliar were going to help,and Picard would be forced to judge accordingly.

Second,no other power is using a thaleron weapon,Romulans included as it is established in Nemesis that research and development,much less use of a thalaron weapon is banned.

With that understood,let's go into further detail why a thaleron weapon would fail.In order to prevent the destruction of Earth and all life in the Alpha Quadrant,every Borg cube would need to be destroyed.Let's limit our heros to the 'easy' task of killing 7000 odd cubes.Heck,let's say the Borg lost 2000 cubes to torpedo attacks.In order to save the day EVERY cube must be destroyed.

That still leaves 5000 cubes to destroy.And with our Allies fleet destroyed at Azure Nebula,there's not enough ships left to do the job.After thalaron-ing say 4500 cubes,the Borg left will adapt to the thalaron weapon,and we still end up shopping for tombstones.

And that's the BEST case scenario.
Worst,the Borg already adapted to thalaron tech and we still die in 8 minutes.
Or we hit em with the thaleron and they call for reinforcements.Adapted.Reinforcements.

 

[Sci]

1. Why do you care?

Because it just makes no sense. Italics are used to place special emphasis on a particular word in a sentence, or to indicate the presence of a foreign word, or for ship names, or to indicate that a character is speaking over a telecommunications device, or to indicate thoughts. None of it fits with your usage.

2. Once again. What is your source for how events transpired in the other timeline. They developed transphasic torpedoes and batmobile armor for a reason.

I made no claims for how things developed in the alternate timeline. I made a claim for how things didn't develop. We know that in that alternate timeline, a Janeway from the future never returned to Voyager to give them access to advanced technology and then destroy the transwarp hub network. Since we know from Destiny and Greater Than the Sum that the destruction of the transwarp network is what triggered the Borg Collective's decision to eradicate the Federation and its allies, we can infer that no such extermination attempt took place in that timeline (since the Borg's extermination attempt in this timeline is a consequence of the decisions made in the alternate timeline).

You keep thinking of conflict with the Borg in terms of violence, of traditional combat. You're limiting your thinking to terms that would inevitably get the Federation destroyed. You need to expand your concept of how to wage war.

There were eight minutes left. Sorry, but the Federation should have re-evaluated it concepts of how to wage war the first time the Borg attacked the Alpha quadrant.

I agree -- the Federation should have made finding a way to neutralize the Borg threat permanently through non-combat-related means a long-term policy rather than something they only do when the Borg are actually attacking.

But in the meantime, resources should not be taken away from an effort that can achieve reach success, such as contacting the Caeliar, in favor of one that is at best a stopgap. (And at eight minutes, there wouldn't be enough time to design and build and implement a thalaron weapon anyway.)

I don't know who you think you're talking to, but my name is Sci and I've made it pretty clear that I consider the question of the morality of the thalaron weapon to be a) arbitrary (why is a thalaron weapon any more immoral than a photon torpedo when both would be considered to be weapons of mass destruction many times more powerful than a thermonuclear weapon?) and b) secondary to the primary question of the effectiveness of the weapons or tactics in question. You're going to need to argue with someone else if you want to argue about the relative morality of the thalaron weapon, because I'm more or less on your side in those terms.

Sorry. You were Mister "I'll do it only if it is 100% guaranteed to work.", my mistake.

No, I'm Mister I'm Not Going to Devote Resources to Something That's Doomed to Failure in the Long Run and Especially if That Something is Considered to be Immoral by my Culture for Whatever Reason.

There's a distinction between saying you'll only do something if it's guaranteed to work and saying you refuse to do something that's guaranteed to fail.

And, to everyone saying that traditional warfare with the Borg is not guaranteed to fail:

It is.

How do we know that?

Because that's how it's always been. The Borg have always been technologically superior. They've always been capable of adapting to any weapon thrown at them -- from phasers to photon torpedoes to quantum torpedoes to transphasic torpedoes. Their ships are larger, faster and more powerful. They have an industrial base millions of times greater than anything the Federation has. They have millions of ships, and trillions of drones. Even if they weren't capable of adapting to any weapon -- which they are -- they would still win if they decided to eradicate the Federation, because of sheer numbers.

But they do adapt to weapons, and this is also an established canonical fact. In point of fact, the canon has made it clear that traditional combat with the Borg has only ever succeeded for one race -- Species 8472. Every other race that tried to fight the Borg en masse in terms of traditional combat failed. Engaging the Borg in the field of battle but not seeking some other way to defeat them is the same thing as laying down and dying. That's what's foolish -- not engaging the Borg in combat. You do what you have to do. But allowing that combat to drain resources away from a means of fighting them that isn't doomed to failure? That's foolish.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I think my big problem with the idea of Picard ordering the construction the thalaron weapon isn't that it might not work or that it would cause political problems down the road or that it was ethically and legally the wrong thing to do.

It's that it's the coward's way out.

If it's built and used, Picard doesn't have to live with the consequences of his actions. Either it destroys the Borg or it doesn't. Picard will never know. He's toast. The Enterprise-E is toast. The Titan, Aventine, and Voyager? All toast, too. (That's assuming that I understood Nemesis correctly and the Enterprise-E wasn't shielded against thalaron radiation. If my understanding is faulty, this whole post is faulty. )

So, either Picard has given the Alpha Quadrant another week (or a few) of life, or he's made the Borg really hopping mad, as though he'd taken a stick and prodded a hornet's nest with it.

It's a suicidal move. It's a coward's decision.

That's what made it so unworthy of Picard. He'd finally given up on hope.

 

[flandry84]

The idea that military officers(the Federation was on war footing)would deny themselves the use of a devestating weapon during a crisis is simply incredible,as in not credible.I understand what the writer was trying to do,give a moral dilemma to the protaganists and reenforce the notion that Picard and co. are the brave,noble heroes of the piece.But TBH,this is where the books fell apart for me.It simply does not ring true.Nobody understands the true horror of the borg like Picard does.He may be an evolved Roddenberryesque human of the 24th century,but that didn't stop him getting all primitive with that tommy-gun in "first contact".

The whole scene regarding the development of the thalaron weapon was IMO a misstep,and just there to give the characters an opportunity to "chew the scenery."

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

BTornadoes are trickier, but I'd be willing to bet most people don't want to live where there is a lot of them, so the land is cheaper, so inevitably people end up there... in a danger zone.

Tornadoes are MUCH more hit-or-miss than earthquakes. There's no way to locate a fault line or a flood plain and say, this neighborhood is OK to live in, and this one isn't. You'd have to clear out all of Tornado Alley to reduce the tornado risk to near-nil, truth be told.

Those who live in tornado-prone areas can really do little to mitigate the risk except make sure they take measures to protect their lives. Thankfully, tornadoes cut a much narrower swath of destruction (most of the time) than an earthquake, hurricane, or a wildfire (which are freaking ANNUAL in some parts of the country!), so ultimately...those are odds the residents in these areas would much rather take than the chances of getting hit by far more devastating disasters.

 

[Marie1]

BTornadoes are trickier, but I'd be willing to bet most people don't want to live where there is a lot of them, so the land is cheaper, so inevitably people end up there... in a danger zone.

Tornadoes are MUCH more hit-or-miss than earthquakes. There's no way to locate a fault line or a flood plain and say, this neighborhood is OK to live in, and this one isn't. You'd have to clear out all of Tornado Alley to reduce the tornado risk to near-nil, truth be told.

Those who live in tornado-prone areas can really do little to mitigate the risk except make sure they take measures to protect their lives. Thankfully, tornadoes cut a much narrower swath of destruction (most of the time) than an earthquake, hurricane, or a wildfire (which are freaking ANNUAL in some parts of the country!), so ultimately...those are odds the residents in these areas would much rather take than the chances of getting hit by far more devastating disasters.

^ You mean like California? Wildfires and earthquakes...

I think that when I was talking about tornadoes, I was thinking Hurricanes, which have those little paths they follow- how certain places are always being leveled. Unlike, as you mention, Tornadoes which are dependent on weather in a unique area. I think there are a few places that hit quite often (I'm thinking when I read on of the Little House on the Prairie books from when Laura was an adult, and there were tons of tornadoes in that area every year.

I know that those things are hard to pin-point, and I'm a hypocrite for talking- I literally live on a volcano. But if they don't get proper levies in NO then its dangerous, IMHO to rebuild. And a nice map- since I'm pretty sure some of the fault lines/tectonic plates have been found, of where those massive earthquakes will happen regularly, should be consulted before a house is built... then again, if you already own the property... what on earth do you do with it? Ahhh life...

 

[wew]

The idea that military officers(the Federation was on war footing)would deny themselves the use of a devestating weapon during a crisis is simply incredible,as in not credible.I understand what the writer was trying to do,give a moral dilemma to the protaganists and reenforce the notion that Picard and co. are the brave,noble heroes of the piece.But TBH,this is where the books fell apart for me.It simply does not ring true.Nobody understands the true horror of the borg like Picard does.He may be an evolved Roddenberryesque human of the 24th century,but that didn't stop him getting all primitive with that tommy-gun in "first contact".

The whole scene regarding the development of the thalaron weapon was IMO a misstep,and just there to give the characters an opportunity to "chew the scenery."

But the real military forces have been known to forgo the the use of a devastating weapon during a crisis. Nuclear weapons, certain chemical weapons, et.al. are not used. The US has actually considered using atomic bombs several times during various conflicts, but chose not to.

When the Chinese forces entered the Korean War en masse, the US and UN force faced a major crisis, but atomic bombs weren't used, though they most likely would have stopped the Chinese/N. Korean forces.

The point of the debate is on moral issues raised. Picard prepares to violate his own ethics. If another starfleet captain and ship had done this, the situation might be viewed differenly at the personnel level.

 

[flandry84]

/\ Huh? the point of the debate was on moral issues raised?
The point of the debate was killing the Borg before they killed you.

This was not a first-person shooter game with only virtual lives at stake.The Borg were ripping through the Federation like crap through a goose.If Picard and starfleet didn't act decisively,that was that,end of everything.Forever.Dead.Permanently.Are you getting it yet?

Sitting back waiting for some external deliverance diminishes Picard IMO.

 

[Sci]

/\ Huh? the point of the debate was on moral issues raised?
The point of the debate was killing the Borg before they killed you.

This was not a first-person shooter game with only virtual lives at stake.The Borg were ripping through the Federation like crap through a goose.If Picard and starfleet didn't act decisively,that was that,end of everything.Forever.Dead.Permanently.Are you getting it yet?

Sitting back waiting for some external deliverance diminishes Picard IMO.

Yes, sitting back and waiting for external deliverance diminishes him. But not actively going out and working to solicit external deliverance. One is doing something, one isn't. It is the act of not doing something that diminishes Picard, not a recognition that pursuing the thalaron weapon is a futile tactic that would only drain resources from tactics that actually have potential.