Federation vs The Dominiom: The Rematch.

[Captain Clark Terrell]

That would be either you, Sran, are clearly incapable of admitting you're wrong and hiding behind semantic irrelevancies/ad personams or you are clearly incapable of presenting your point in writing in an intelligible manner.

That's rich coming from someone who routinely posts in sentence fragments and broken English. Get back to me once you've rectified that problem.

--Sran

 

[Edit_XYZ]

That would be either you, Sran, are clearly incapable of admitting you're wrong and hiding behind semantic irrelevancies/ad personams or you are clearly incapable of presenting your point in writing in an intelligible manner.

That's rich coming from someone who routinely posts in sentence fragments and broken English. Get back to me once you've rectified that problem.

--Sran

Which makes the correct option: you, Sran, are clearly incapable of admitting you're wrong.
Doesn't it get boring, hiding behind semantic irrelevancies/ad personams?

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Which makes the correct option: you, Sran, are clearly incapable of admitting you're wrong.

And this is where you're wrong, because I've admitted as much in the past. I'm not wrong in this instance because I never argued that the Federation possessed superior military capability compared to the Dominion. That you're incapable of recognizing my previous posts for what they is your failure, not mine. I don't have time to create remedial versions of my posts so that people like you can comprehend what's being discussed. That you managed to prove my earlier point about your poor sentence structure makes this even more entertaining for me.

For all of Timo's arrogance, he's clearly an intelligent man who presents his points well and is able to recognize both the obvious and the subtle points made by others. I've no problem debating with him in spite of how trying I find his condescending attitude.

I can't say the same for you, as you've repeatedly failed to grasp the points that I've made (and now clarified on multiple occasions) in previous posts, yet you believe you're entitled to tell me what I "really" meant merely because it helps you feel better about yourself. And you accuse me of hiding behind irrelevancies?

Doesn't it get boring, hiding behind semantic irrelevancies/ad personams?

I wouldn't know, as I've not done such a thing. But you can believe what you wish. It must be a trying experience, being trapped in one's own delusions.

--Sran

 

[Edit_XYZ]

Which makes the correct option: you, Sran, are clearly incapable of admitting you're wrong.

And this is where you're wrong, because I've admitted as much in the past. I'm not wrong in this instance because I never argued that the Federation possessed superior military capability compared to the Dominion. That you're incapable of recognizing my previous posts for what they is your failure, not mine. I don't have time to create remedial versions of my posts so that people like you can comprehend what's being discussed. That you managed to prove my earlier point about your poor sentence structure makes this even more entertaining for me.semantic irrelevancies/ad personams

For all of Timo's arrogance, he's clearly an intelligent man who presents his points well and is able to recognize both the obvious and the subtle points made by others. I've no problem debating with him in spite of how trying I find his condescending attitude.

I can't say the same for you, as you've repeatedly failed to grasp the points that I've made (and now clarified on multiple occasions) in previous posts, yet you believe you're entitled to tell me what I "really" meant merely because it helps you feel better about yourself. And you accuse me of hiding behind irrelevancies?

Apparently, my last post was incomplete: You're hiding not only behind semantic irrelevancies/ad personams, but behind a gigantic superiority complex, as well.

Really, Sran, you don't even seem to realise one can actually read your past posts. After making such a glaring error, you really shouldn't be making comments about other posters' intelligence; that is, unless you actually want to create hilarity at your expense.

For example - in your recent posts, you only admitted the dominion was stronger (as opposed to creating a straw-man by trying to blur the distinction between the dominion expeditionary force and the dominion proper) when you ran out of places to hide; which was when you changed your mantra to ~'I wasn't really annoyed other posters kept saying the dominion is stronger (and using a straw-man to support my point); I merely had a problem with how one of the posters kept constructing his posts'.
And you, apparently, actually think this moving the goalposts you did is half-way credible - when embellished by your superiority complex and ad personams. Still remember what I told you about unintentional hilarity?

PS - Well, whatever.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Apparently, my last post was incomplete: You're hiding not only behind semantic irrelevancies/ad personams, but behind a gigantic superiority complex, as well.

Is that right? Well, what else am I doing? Tell me more, since you seem to understand me so well.

Really, Sran, you don't even seem to realise one can actually read your past posts. After making such a glaring error, you really shouldn't be making comments about other posters' intelligence; that is, unless you actually want to create hilarity at your expense.

Except that I made no error. You only thought I did, which is an entirely different matter. But that's your problem.

For example - in your recent posts, you only admitted the dominion was stronger when you ran out of places to hide; which was when you changed your mantra to ~'I wasn't really annoyed other posters kept saying the dominion is stronger; I merely had a problem with how one of the posters kept constructing his posts'.

I've already addressed this issue. That you're incapable of understanding isn't my responsibility to fix.

And you, apparently, actually think this moving the goalposts you did is half-way credible - when embellished by your superiority complex and ad personams. Still remember what I told you about unintentional hilarity?
Well, whatever.

You might have a point if I actually did what you're accusing me of. But I digress...

--Sran

 

[Edit_XYZ]

Given your huge superiority complex, you should actually try for some originality, as opposed to repeating the same old no substance mantra. At least put some work behind it, Sran.

I even modified my last post somewhat, to make it harder for you to pretend (hopefully) not to get the point.
O, well.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Given your huge superiority complex, you should actually try for some originality, as opposed to repeating the same old no substance mantra. At least put some work behind it, Sran.

You might try taking your own advice before polluting this board with more of your nonsensical, masturbatory drivel.

I even modified my last post somewhat, to make it harder for you to pretend (hopefully) not to get the point.

You don't have a point. The sad part is that you don't realize it.

--Sran

 

[Edit_XYZ]

"masturbatory" is a nice enough touch. Barely mediocre, though. You answered the question I posted earlier - your posts are getting boring.

And - you truly cannot recognise a straw-man even after it was pointed out to you twice by me alone: "(as opposed to creating a straw-man by trying to blur the distinction between the dominion expeditionary force and the dominion proper)"? It's not rocket science.

PS - Feel free to have the last word. This has become, indeed, a waste of time.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

"masturbatory" is a nice enough touch. Barely mediocre, though. You answered the question I posted earlier, though - your posts are getting boring.

As are yours. At least my posts are properly constructed. Yours look like they were written by a three-year-old.

And - you truly cannot recognise a straw-man even after it was pointed out to you twice by me alone (as opposed to creating a straw-man by trying to blur the distinction between the dominion expeditionary force and the dominion proper)?

I made no such argument to begin with. What part of that do you not understand?

It's not rocket science.

Fortunately for you. You can't even comprehend the English language.

--Sran

 

[Ln X]

Federation wins without even firing a shot.

Why?

You have Sisko living in the Celestial Temple and you bet your life them Prophets are watching both sides of their wormhole. So when the Dominion decides to launch their invasion and send how many tens of thousands of ships (with millions of Jem'Hadar), Sisko will see this and he'll get his Prophet buddies to wipe out every Dominion ship that enters the wormhole.

The Dominion will quickly get the message and they'll skulk around in the Gamma Quadrant. So hundreds if not thousands of Dominion ships lost and not one life lost in the Alpha Quadrant.

Of course the real rematch is if the Dominion decides to expand in the direction of the Alpha Quadrant, but that could taken dozens if not hundreds of years conquering all of that territory plus integrating it into the Dominion so that the supply lines don't become stretched.

So when the Dominion does arrive in the Alpha Quadrant the Federation would have plenty of time to prepare. Besides given the numerous deep space missions, the Federation is bound to receive early warning of the Dominion's expansion, plus given Voyager's return and all of that futuristic technology. The Federation may just have a chance and hold out...

 

[Shatna]

Well, hey there, kids. Looks like this is a good time to formally introduce myself.

I'm an old TrekBBS regular, having signed up 10 years ago last month. If my username isn't familiar it's because I have only just returned after a long absence, but back in the day this board was my regular internet home, and I am rather fond of this old place. Which means I am very interested in helping to keep it in good working order, which means fostering an environment where good discussion and healthy debate are encouraged. I am not interested in handing out warnings, or threatening bans, or scolding or chiding or lecturing or just plain yellin'. Mind you, that doesn't mean I won't do any of those things; I will in fact do them with great glee and even gusto if the situation calls for it. I'd much rather concentrate on keeping this a place of civility and good humor and an exchange of ideas. Not to mention silly fun. I am always up for silly fun.

So now that we all know where the new sheriff stands, the new sheriff would like to say, in a tone both kind and firm: lower the shrill tone of this discussion, please. I'm seeing terms like "idiotic" and "superiority complex" start to pop up and I know from ancient, weary and firsthand experience that this will serve only to heat things up. So let's knock it off. Sran and Edit_XYZ, I'm lookin' at you.

 

[Ln X]

So now that we all know where the new sheriff stands, the new sheriff would like to say, in a tone both kind and firm: lower the shrill tone of this discussion, please. I'm seeing terms like "idiotic" and "superiority complex" start to pop up and I know from ancient, weary and firsthand experience that this will serve only to heat things up. So let's knock it off.

Right on sheriff Shatna!

 

[Shatna]

*Nods, ambles away, squinting*

 

[KGator]

And removing those from the big Prometheus drones only serves to narrow down the forward arrowhead a little. The thing is already as barebones as barebones can be - almost two-dimensional save for the engine nacelles!

One possibility: because you need combat drones, which by definition have to have large engines and heavy weapons, and you need a crewed control center, which doesn't need either of those but does need to tag along - right until combat is joined. It makes sense, then, to use the drones as "carriers" for the control unit.

It is an engine capable of moving a set of weapons fast enough to catch a starship. I.e. it is a starship engine. Those don't come at the size of a walnut in the 24th century yet. But if they did, obviously the E-D would have them.

Hardly. But such "drones" would only cover an extremely narrow area of warfare; in order to cover any appreciable part of it, you need automated starships, not sessile guns.

No, it does not. Captain Keogh was right to dismiss it as fit only to fight glorified shuttlecraft - it has never stood any chance against capital ships, as nicely evidenced e.g. by "Armageddon Game". It has never even stood a chance against the smallest Jem'Hadar ships, apart from "Treachery, Faith and the Great River" where the first of the titular buzzwords was key to victory.

Nope. Neither the Reaper nor the Gray Eagle has any place in this comparison, as they are not combat drones - all they can do is assassinate helpless victims.

A combat drone, capable of fighting at least its peers (and by your criteria, its biggers), starts out at the size range of X-47. That's a hugely complex machine, only theoretically capable of combat even at its projected operational best, and vastly more expensive to operate than a F-16 category crewed combat aircraft.

You don't get a combat drone by installing a toy aircraft engine or an automobile powerplant. You need a turbojet of credible size. And the Reaper has none, and cannot do combat.

Well, of course not, if they are intended to be incapable of combat. Which is the design goal of all the currently operational flying drones - they are either pure eyes-in-the-sky or delivery platforms for weapons capable of hurting only the softest of targets, with the theoretical ability to hit a moving target now very gradually translating into operational reality. Hell, a Reaper can't even actually shoot down a Reaper despite its ability to carry light fire-and-forget AAMs.

Timo Saloniemi

Well the main problem I have with your argument is your overreliance on The Prometheus as your primary basis of what drone warfare would look like in the 24th century. While the full background of that class of ship is speculation, it could easily be:
A) An R&D boondoggle that would never see mass production due to its inefficient design.
B) A design for an existing starship retrofitted to be controlled by computer similar to the way the Enterprise was in "The Ultimate Computer"
C) The Prometheus ship was designed to allow Starfleet the flexibility of utilizing the ship as mainly automated or with a full crew complement and thus built it with all the extra areas that would not be utilized in the automated configuration.

Clearly, the Star Trek universe has shown almost no interest in robots, androids and artificial intelligence other than their sporadic inclusion for storytelling purposes. The obvious reason for this is that people tend not to view TV shows or movies about automated ships exploring space. Its kind of boring. Thus despite our own society moving in that direction its been established that hardly any races in the ST Universe have adopted a heavy reliance on computerized automation to the extent we would expect.

Have you ever heard of the term "apples and oranges"? Comparing 2nd and 3rd Generation drone vehicles with 70th and 80th generation manned aircraft is not quite equivalent. Our current military is moving in the direction of automated system and the Air Force is at the forefront of this. Studies have shown that the same aircraft designed without pilots would have a $2-5 million savings without having to build a cockpit for the pilots and all the other redundant systems necessary to ensure the pilots survival. Additionally, often the limitations of what aircraft can do is artificially lowered by the G-forces and strains that humans can endure while piloting the aircraft. That restriction would then be removed allowing for faster and more agile aircraft which could fly to their design limits rather than the limits a human can endure.

Drones and unmanned platforms are the future of combat. However they were not widely accepted as such in the 1960s when Star Trek was created which is why they seem to be entirely missing in that fictional universe. And of course, as mentioned before, the storytelling value of automated characters is not as great for entertainment purposes. This does not mean that we can't analyze what Starfleet would be capable of if force to fight for its very survival in an all out war.

This notion of "combat speeds" is not an issue. Imagine a starship "Carrier" that carried 24 drone weapons platforms. They would warp in, drop their shields, release their drones and then either enter the battle themselves or observe at a distance. These drone's themselves are only capable of subspace travel so your starships have the ability to engage warp and leave the battle. However your planets and stationary facilities (Starbases, dockyards, research stations, etc) don't have that ability so they would be destroyed should you not choose to defend them. I build a fleet of 8-12 of these carriers and any required support and scout ships and simply go around destroying your infrastructure. I may never destroy a single one of your warp capable starships (they flee before that happens) but I win the war by destroying everything you leave behind.
This whole discussion is theoretical. Star Fleet Cannon has become as conflicted and incongruent as the bible.

I could quite confidently say that the Federation would easily crush the Dominion in a rematch. In Wrath of Khan the Federation easily destroyed a planet with the Genesis device. Even without the planet building characteristics (which were the desired technological leap that ultimately didn't prove stable) that means I have the technology to destroy entire worlds or solar systems in minutes. Then if you look at STID, transporters can apparently beam objects a great distances (and into starships moving at warp speed). Hell, the Federation could target and destroy every single Dominion Homeworld in less than a day with their Genesis and Transporter technology.

On the otherhand I could state the opposite is true. The Dominion victory over the Federation is assured. Not only does Starfleet seem quite incompetent at times with their tactics and strategy but they obviously don't take defense too seriously. I mean hell, why does Earth, Vulcan, Starfleet HQ etc, always seem undefended??? A pacifist culture like that is never going to win a war against a determined enemy with similar or greater resources.

And I won't even touch the idea that if the Federation had the technology to break down and reassemble objects at the molecular level the Federation has access to unlimited resources because they could transport a pile of manure and rearrange it into a photon torpedo or into a replicant Captain Kirk or whatever other item they needed. This discussion is all for fun anyways.

 

[Timo]

Comparing 2nd and 3rd Generation drone vehicles with 70th and 80th generation manned aircraft is not quite equivalent.

Indeed, it completely preempts speculation, as we by default have no idea what 70th generation drones might look like.

But the comparison you don't appreciate here is the only one of any relevance. The drones of today can't fight anything that fights back - and the situation is not going to change if both the drones and their supposed prey keep on evolving "at the same rate". One or the other has to change in order for the gap to be closed, and everybody today seems to agree that it's gonna be the drones. They have to jump straight from being enlarged toys to being unpiloted F-16s or they're never gonna shoot down anything of worth.

Studies have shown that the same aircraft designed without pilots would have a $2-5 million savings without having to build a cockpit for the pilots and all the other redundant systems necessary to ensure the pilots survival.

Exactly. Which proves my point - current drones are a dead end in terms of combat, and pilotless versions of current piloted aircraft will rule, at least in the short term. Indeed, Sweden has already opted to make its future UCAS out of optionally piloted Gripens, rather than playing with toy aircraft...

However your planets and stationary facilities (Starbases, dockyards, research stations, etc) don't have that ability so they would be destroyed should you not choose to defend them.

In Trek terms, you wouldn't defend them with starships. Curiously enough, a starship in Star Trek has never defended a planet!

Starships attack planets. Planets are either undefended, or then (at least in DS9) fixed fortifications defend them, with a few ships hanging around and joining the fray. Fixed fortifications are extremely good at multitargeting and can blow weak units out of the sky with single shots (say, DS9 when fighting Klingon Birds of Prey or Dominion small craft). So you swarm the fortifications with hundreds of full-sized starships... Trying to swarm them with weaker units would just mean you needing millions of them, apparently. Drones would cost you more than crewed ships, or optionally crewed ships.

Timo Saloniemi