Dreadnaught

[Amaraen]

As part of my binging today, I watched Dreadnaught from Season 2, and this made me think of a lot of questions.

If the Cardassians built this weapon, then they used their own technology, did they not? Shouldn't the super powerful weapons, armor, and shields be useable on their warships? Do they really outclass the Starfleet like this?

They made a big deal about how it destroyed something made from a nearly indestructible material, and the crew was like "What could have done this to that material?", so it means the weapons on the Dreadnaught are much stronger than anything the Starfleet crew has access to. Then during the fights, the Voyager seemed to stand no chance against the missile.

I really don't understand how this can be, and then the Cardassian warships are so much weaker.

I love Voyager and enjoy watching the show, but sometimes I feel like they change the rules on a weekly basis to fit the plot, and I feel like this was one of those instances.

 

[Christopher Miles]

... they change the rules on a weekly basis to fit the plot, and I feel like this was one of those instances.

You answered your own question, I think. There was no effort by the producers to stay consistent with either what came before in Trek- or with what the Voyager Crew itself had experienced. This is what kept taking me out of the story... I was always thinking... "...But what about the time when...?" I was doing the work of the producers- and I already have a job.

Thinking of superweapons- the self-replicating cloaked mines. You put that tech on a missile barrage- the enemy is toast.

 

[Timo]

But there are real-world examples of such things. The good old Monitor was an unstoppable and indestructible naval superweapon, yet that didn't make the US Navy a particularly formidable player, nor did its technologies make other US warships superior to their contemporaries. The counterpart, the very, very primitive Virginia, is an even better example of an underdog being able to whip up a "superweapon" of little practical significance.

As for excuses...

If the Cardassians built this weapon, then they used their own technology, did they not? Shouldn't the super powerful weapons, armor, and shields be useable on their warships? Do they really outclass the Starfleet like this?

We have seen tradeoffs elsewhere in Trek: tiny probes can be faster than big starships, automated defense satellites can be more powerful than crewed gun platforms. Possibly technology like that would fry the crew, meaning only automated systems can be burdened with it?

OTOH, starships get their power from antimatter. This thing is a giant flying antimatter tank. It really should be able to afford to sacrifice a bit of that warhead for temporarily outgunning the mightiest starships!

But that's still a limited, narrow-focus capability. Could the Dreadnought defeat starships in other types of fight? Could it, say, catch one? We never saw it maneuver much, even if it was credited with cleverness in evasion.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[USS Triumphant]

Maybe it was a one-off ship the Cardies built around some "found" tech they have no ability to replicate? Like what might have happened if Starfleet personnel managed to take control of the Doomsday Weapon?

 

[Timo]

The thing is, our regular heroes recognize the weapon signature as Cardassian long before Torres comes clean with the facts. So we do have to accept that very powerful yet characteristically Cardassian weapons are onboard the missile - and then explain why they are not aboard any other Cardassian vessel.

Torres does claim the weapon was "experimental", so it's possible Cardassia was on its way to technological greatness but was co-opted by the Dominion before reaching that greatness - after which the Dominion got all the credit for improved Cardassian weapons performance.

Funny how the Cardassians "wasted" their experiment on a Maquis weapons depot, while Torres "wasted" the return lob on a fuel depot. I can see why the writers chose these "bloodless" targets, but why would either of these combatants in reality decide to strike at anything less than terror level? Any old space corvette can destroy weapons dumps, but the Dreadnought busts entire planets - why wouldn't the Central Command want to kill ten million people it deems sympathetic to the Maquis cause, as a warning of things to come? And why wouldn't Torres respond in kind?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Squiggy]

The good old Monitor was an unstoppable and indestructible naval superweapon...

That sank.

 

[RogueVasad]

The thing is, our regular heroes recognize the weapon signature as Cardassian long before Torres comes clean with the facts. So we do have to accept that very powerful yet characteristically Cardassian weapons are onboard the missile - and then explain why they are not aboard any other Cardassian vessel.

Torres does claim the weapon was "experimental", so it's possible Cardassia was on its way to technological greatness but was co-opted by the Dominion before reaching that greatness - after which the Dominion got all the credit for improved Cardassian weapons performance.

Funny how the Cardassians "wasted" their experiment on a Maquis weapons depot, while Torres "wasted" the return lob on a fuel depot. I can see why the writers chose these "bloodless" targets, but why would either of these combatants in reality decide to strike at anything less than terror level? Any old space corvette can destroy weapons dumps, but the Dreadnought busts entire planets - why wouldn't the Central Command want to kill ten million people it deems sympathetic to the Maquis cause, as a warning of things to come? And why wouldn't Torres respond in kind?

Timo Saloniemi

The Maquis are almost never seen destroying civilian targets or aiming to kill civilians. The exception was Eddington's campaign, which allowed the Cardassians time to abandon the targets if memory serves, and ships they believed were transporting weapons or WMD components. I'm sure there were Cardassian civilians injured or killed in their other attacks but we never see them going out of their way to kill civilians,

And the Cardassians know that deploying Dreadnaught against a colony, even one suspected of aiding the Maquis, would almost certainly lead to Starfleet coming over the border. That's why they didn't launch any full scale attacks on the DMZ colonies until they were ready to start a new war with the Federation.

 

[Timo]

But the point is that both combatants are using a planet killer. So we're expected to believe two impossible things before breakfast:

1) That Cardassians would build a planet killer (without the slightest fear of superpower ire as the result of this act) and then use it for a task that did not require killing planets. It's a wasted silver bullet, and a very poor test of the weapon as well. An unstoppable penetrator fired against an opponent whose defenses must be among the weakest among Cardassia's many enemies? Yet with the ability to go cry to the UFP, the enemy Cardassia most needs to fear - or frighten?

2) That, when handed this weapon for use, the Maquis would similarly waste it on a completely meaningless return shot that serves neither the Maquis tactical needs nor the political ones. It's heavyweight political capital for them - handing it over to Starfleet might solve the entire conflict, forcing Cardassia to withdraw from the DMZ at the very least or be leveled by the superpowers for daring to field planet killers. Actually firing it back is a lose-lose proposition for the Maquis, especially for those working for the moderate Chakotay.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Maybe the Cardassians had only recently developed the technology that Dreadnaught uses, and weren't yet able to make it work on a massive starship-sized scale. So they built a small prototype while they worked out how to install it on a ship (and presumably this never panned out).