which means you have to incorporate all the equipment for an escape pod into an elevator car which makes it bigger and uses up space in you spacecraft. and only the last guy can use it anyway (or it's time for a court martial).
Lack of Redundancy and warp capable lifeboats in Trek
- Thread starter sciquest2525
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which means you have to incorporate all the equipment for an escape pod into an elevator car which makes it bigger and uses up space in you spacecraft. and only the last guy can use it anyway (or it's time for a court martial).
Considering the size of the Delta Flyer escape pod, how much extra space would it take? As Timo stated, a turbolift has most of these systems already, so the additional space would be trivial, especially since you're reclaiming most of the space you'd be using for conventional escape pods.
How is that not already a problem with conventional escape pods? Heck, didn't Seven of Nine get launched in an escape pod in the Voyager episode "Inside Man"? Looks like you can launch those babies whenever you want.
This occurs to me: Starship escape pods are not really designed for use in war time. As we saw in at least three Dominion War episodes they are staggeringly vulnerable to attack, destruction or capture if ejected in battle or post battle.
Just as today, a warplanes ejection seats are much more dangerous to a pilot in a combat situation than they are if he has to eject simply because his plane runs out of fuel. As an article said "An exploding SAM is much more dangerous than an engine flame out". So it probably stands to reason that Starship escape pods are more built to save crew members during a "natural disaster" and not in a combat situation.
Just as today, a warplanes ejection seats are much more dangerous to a pilot in a combat situation than they are if he has to eject simply because his plane runs out of fuel. As an article said "An exploding SAM is much more dangerous than an engine flame out". So it probably stands to reason that Starship escape pods are more built to save crew members during a "natural disaster" and not in a combat situation.
I was watching Elaan of Troyus last week and I was shocked at how crap the ship was portrayed without the warp engines. There should definitely be an auxiliary engine room in the saucer with a small reaction chamber even if they have to bus containment pods up there for use in emergencies. What was also odd was that they were wringing their hands about their phaser power when photon torpedoes could have done the trick without the warp engines.
I'm not sure I'd go quite so far with transporters since I'm of the view that they can only work without being kill and clone machines if the transportees are phased into a parallel dimension where space and time don't apply. The displaced energy from that dimension is what is sent to the landing site and there are plenty of forms of energy that don't interact with matter (which is mostly empty space). I would say the restriction on transporting is whether you have sufficient power to stop the displaced energy from leaking away before you swap it back. If the energy leaks away not all of the person's molecules will return.
The real issue for me is that it should not be possible to beam back without a communicator, since this acts as a relay for the quantum scan from the ship. The purpose of the pad for me is to add back in replicated matter (based on the pattern in the buffer) on the return journey. If you keep beaming from place to place without using a pad, less and less of you is left until organ failure results. If you transport too often in too short a space of time, too much of you becomes replicated matter and organ failure results. If something weird happens to the transporter it's possible in rare cases to survive with a high portion of replicated matter, although epigenetic changes have been recorded (Evil Kirk).
Wasn't K'Ehleyr squeezed into a torpedo because it was warp capable? She would have been more comfortable in a life raft. What gives?
IIRC, the idea behind why photon torpedoes are sometimes not used when the warp engines are off line is that the torpedoes engines are not powerful enough to "warp space" initially all on their own and require a "hand off" from a ship with its warp drive operating in order to be used against other starships traveling at warp speed as the Klingon cruiser was in "Elaan of Troyius".
Which is why lots of the fan technical publications label the torpedo warp engines as "warp sustainer engines".
Which is why lots of the fan technical publications label the torpedo warp engines as "warp sustainer engines".
Interesting notion (especially concerning the creation of Evil Kirk)/ However, why would too much replicated matter be a problem over time? Either it's an acceptable substitute for the body's tissue or it's not. And if it's not (presumably because the pattern based replication is imperfect) then at what point does it become acceptable? It must become acceptable at some point, otherwise every crewman would have an upper limit per lifetime on the amount of transports they could endure.
Perhaps it is proof positive that life rafts aren't warp capable?
But more seriously, K'Ehleyr's gamble with the photorp was only done at all because there were no other options available at that starbase. Under less urgent circumstances she could no doubt have taken a shuttle or some other small craft to meet the Enterprise. Also, her torp was travelling at Warp 9 - even as someone who firmly believes that shuttlecraft have FTL capability I doubt that one could achieve such high velocity.
I was assuming that replicated matter is not 'living' tissue since living clones cannot simply pop out of a replicator or a transporter without some shenanigans as a precursor but it serves the purpose until the body replaces the cells through natural processes.
So you'd be fine if you don't repeatedly use the transporter multiple times every day so that your body recovers naturally.
It could also explain the difference between transporters configured for cargo, which is non-living. The Enterprise refit plans propose emergency transporters for evacuation. Likely these work on lower specs since losing a bit more fat to subspace is preferable to death. I like the notion that it would be a trade-off.
The idea of the transporter shoving some dead "filler matter" into my body as a matter of standard procedure sounds most unappealing.
Couldn't the replacement cells be brought to life by the body's natural processes? Sort of like instant freeze dried blood? Would be quicker than waiting for the body to regrow all those parts in the usual way...
Couldn't the replacement cells be brought to life by the body's natural processes? Sort of like instant freeze dried blood? Would be quicker than waiting for the body to regrow all those parts in the usual way...
Dedicated "cargo settings" in transporters are noncanon. Indeed, while "cargo" was being transported in "Dagger of the Mind", a stowaway survived the process just fine.
OTOH, replication was the chosen means to provide working neural tissue to a victim in "Emanations". Replicating lungs for Neelix wasn't going to work, though, even though the need was pressing. It would seem that a mad scientist should be able to replicate a puppy or a wife if he really put his mind, time and replicator credits into it - it's just that practical and ethical issues conspire to make this unattractive, compared to alternatives.
Keeping death at an arm's length isn't easy going even in the 24th century. But running away from it apparently works just fine. The pods of the Shenzhou demonstrated no warp drive, yet the occupants survived so that we meet them again six months later. Direct pickup at the battle site is ruled out, because any ship capable of picking up the pods there would have been capable of picking up the important Klingon cloak, too, and putting an end to Voq's misery - so the pods did get some distance away, and perhaps spent some significant time in that transit.
Pods aren't necessarily quite as vulnerable as one might think - the DS9/VOY ones have their own phaser strips, while the ones at Wolf 359 presumably had excellent stealth, because the E-D sensors didn't pick them up but again no starship picked them up, either, for several Borg-related reasons. Still, the odds of survival aren't going to be high, and might be lower still if the pods were encumbered by the kaboom bits of a working warp drive.
Timo Saloniemi
OTOH, replication was the chosen means to provide working neural tissue to a victim in "Emanations". Replicating lungs for Neelix wasn't going to work, though, even though the need was pressing. It would seem that a mad scientist should be able to replicate a puppy or a wife if he really put his mind, time and replicator credits into it - it's just that practical and ethical issues conspire to make this unattractive, compared to alternatives.
Keeping death at an arm's length isn't easy going even in the 24th century. But running away from it apparently works just fine. The pods of the Shenzhou demonstrated no warp drive, yet the occupants survived so that we meet them again six months later. Direct pickup at the battle site is ruled out, because any ship capable of picking up the pods there would have been capable of picking up the important Klingon cloak, too, and putting an end to Voq's misery - so the pods did get some distance away, and perhaps spent some significant time in that transit.
Pods aren't necessarily quite as vulnerable as one might think - the DS9/VOY ones have their own phaser strips, while the ones at Wolf 359 presumably had excellent stealth, because the E-D sensors didn't pick them up but again no starship picked them up, either, for several Borg-related reasons. Still, the odds of survival aren't going to be high, and might be lower still if the pods were encumbered by the kaboom bits of a working warp drive.
Timo Saloniemi
At Wolf 359 I've always thought other local spacecraft (from the planet in the system) probably picked up all the escape pods before Enterprise finally made its way through the battle site.
Or perhaps the lone surviving starship picked up all the survivors before Enterprise got there then lit out for the nearest friendly port with medical facilities.
Or perhaps the lone surviving starship picked up all the survivors before Enterprise got there then lit out for the nearest friendly port with medical facilities.
But the thing is, there should and could not have been any "local" or "surviving" ships. The Borg would have made sure of that. They offed utterly insignificant ships like Sisko's old tub and that Oberth; they wouldn't have allowed evacuation to take place anywhere near the battle site.
And what would an evacuation ship have done anyway? Flown away from Earth at maximum warp? Why? Did they already decide Earth was going to be destroyed? I don't see that sort of defeatism really working. Earth would be the nearest friendly port with medical facilities, and the one in the most desperate need of additional ships, too - flying away from Earth would earn the skipper a swift execution at the destination for his cowardice, regardless of how little sense it would have made to stay and fight.
No ships could have survived Wolf 359, and indeed we never hear of any ship surviving. The big question is, did anybody at all survive (save for Sisko, who enjoyed literal divine protection)? We hear of casualties exclusively, never of survivors (other than Sisko and presumably those sharing the lifeboat with him).
Timo Saloniemi
And what would an evacuation ship have done anyway? Flown away from Earth at maximum warp? Why? Did they already decide Earth was going to be destroyed? I don't see that sort of defeatism really working. Earth would be the nearest friendly port with medical facilities, and the one in the most desperate need of additional ships, too - flying away from Earth would earn the skipper a swift execution at the destination for his cowardice, regardless of how little sense it would have made to stay and fight.
No ships could have survived Wolf 359, and indeed we never hear of any ship surviving. The big question is, did anybody at all survive (save for Sisko, who enjoyed literal divine protection)? We hear of casualties exclusively, never of survivors (other than Sisko and presumably those sharing the lifeboat with him).
Timo Saloniemi
Yes we do know that one ship survived. Admiral Hanson specified he had 40 ships prepared to intercept the Borg at Wolf-359. In "The Drumhead" Admiral Satie specifies that at Wolf 359 "How many of our ships were destroyed? 39. With a loss of life of nearly 11,000".
Some suggested that the surviving ship was the U.S.S. Endeavour as in Voyager, Janeway imitates the voice of the captain of the Endeavour in describing how evil the Borg were.
Lol, yes and they system didn't even register that it beamed up a person. But wasn't that using a personnel transport to beam up cargo? They don't seem to have cargo transporters in TOS. In ST: Beyond, Scotty states that the cargo transporter settings have to be modified for people so it's not entirely non-canon. It's likely just a question of power consumption, which could be key in an emergency.
I suppose they could be a replicated form of stem cells that require some time to adapt to the body's needs. Too many stem cells can't adapt in time?
It doesn't work like that. Hanson said he had 40 ships and hoped for more. But 40 is a round number. Satie merely estabishes the more accurate number, which was 39, and also reveals that Hanson never got the reinforcements he hoped for.
There's no survivor, because if there were, such a survivor would have been mentioned in one or the other of the relevant episodes. There is never any mention of a surviving ship, and never any mention of a surviving person other than Sisko.
But suggesting that any Borg encounter is automatically a Wolf 359 thing is fallacy. Picard met the Borg five times at least - why wouldn't others?
It was a Very Special transporter at the very least. It was somewhere deep belowdecks, as van Gelden subsequently is spotted down on Deck 14 while on his way up to the Bridge. It is also exclusively provided with some sort of an exposed switchboard on the wall, something we never see on the "regular" transporters on the upper decks.
We have no reason to think that a separate thing called "cargo transporter" would have special properties, though. TNG shows us a couple of types of transporter for moving cargo, and those are seen moving personnel, too.
Well, transporters down on Deck 14 or so, supposedly near the cargo holds, and moving cargo. Call those whatever you wish.
Basically, he says the things were built for cargo originally. But so were Archer's transporters in ENT. Stamping a few forms seemed to solve that - but Scotty would be justified in expressing his doubts about using hardware like that.
That is, we don't know for certain if the Federation ever had a transporter that had difficulty or risk wrt the people moving thing. It did use some legacy hardware at first for the task that back in its day may have suffered from difficulty/risk, but even this difficulty/risk is not clearly confirmed.
Or then neural tissue can be replaced by a simplified substitute that sort of becomes a separate, non-integrating implant that handles electric signals only and never bothers to "eat" or "excrete" like living tissue would - while a lung must grow into an integral part of a fairly complex chemical whole?
Julian Bashir can replace parts of the human(oid) brain with positronic computers easily enough, so perhaps nerves are a triviality to begin with, and tell us nothing about the state of the art as regards livers, lungs or reproductive tissue...
Timo Saloniemi
Conversely, there must have been survivors at Wolf 359 or else the Enterprise would have detected Sisko's escape pod/shuttle when it passed though the battle after several hours later. Those pods were not picked up by the Borg, since Sisko appeared on Deep Space Nine with Jake.
It is likely that one or more ships survived the battle and managed to evade the advancing Borg cube, which was damaged, since it too didn't make it far from the battle area before Enterprise arrived. The surviving Federation or Klingon ships were dimed to not be a threat by the Borg and because of this, they were not destroyed as their destruction and assimilation at this time was irrelevant to the task of getting to Earth. These ships would have picked up the survivors and headed off to whatever nearby base or planet they could that was not on the same direction to Earth that the Borg cubes was heading. It is entirely possible that the surviving ship were some of those being repaired still a year later when Picard needed ships for his blockage of the Klingon-Romulan border.
It is likely that one or more ships survived the battle and managed to evade the advancing Borg cube, which was damaged, since it too didn't make it far from the battle area before Enterprise arrived. The surviving Federation or Klingon ships were dimed to not be a threat by the Borg and because of this, they were not destroyed as their destruction and assimilation at this time was irrelevant to the task of getting to Earth. These ships would have picked up the survivors and headed off to whatever nearby base or planet they could that was not on the same direction to Earth that the Borg cubes was heading. It is entirely possible that the surviving ship were some of those being repaired still a year later when Picard needed ships for his blockage of the Klingon-Romulan border.
Here, as with the Battle of the Binaries, we
1) lack any reference to surviving ships or rescue ships
2) lack any rationale for why such ships would have settled on picking up the pods where there were much more important issues at hand
3) see lifepods actually depart unmolested, apparently because they are not glowing targets.
The alternate interpretation, then, and the only one that can account for #2, is that the pods just escape on their own, relying on their stealth.
Why evade the damaged Cube? Kick the enemy in the implants when he's down. The entire Earth/Federation/galaxy is at stake, after all.
Fighting those ships in the first place was irrelevant to that task. Just fly straight to Earth without stopping at Wolf 359.
That the Cube did stop was probably Picard's doing. "Sacrifice ten thousand people who have sworn to die anyway, so that billions of innocents just perhaps might live" sounds like a good idea, and selling it to the Borg shouldn't be that difficult, either. The Collective loves the idea of being thorough, after all.
Sure - the Borg for some reason left many ships virtually intact, only blowing big holes in them rather than turning them to dust. But the ships "surviving" would be a matter of them being recovered after the original loss, not them sailing out of Wolf 359 on their own power.
Timo Saloniemi
Why wouldn't the Borg simply ignore ships that were not a threat to it? And one or two individual ships, perhaps even damaged themselves would likely be of no interest to the Borg.
The bottom line is that Hanson said he had 40 ships. Satie said 39 ships destroyed. Thus, one ship of the 40 survived the battle.
The bottom line is that Hanson said he had 40 ships. Satie said 39 ships destroyed. Thus, one ship of the 40 survived the battle.
We know the Borg always ignore non-threats ("BoBW") - but Starfleet overall was a non-threat, and still they chose to engage.
We also know the Borg never ignore non-threats ("Dark Frontier") but meticuously press on till the last cute puppy is assimilated. Which of these truths should we trust - the one speculated upon by our heroes in 2367, or the one told by one Borg to another in 2375?
It's sort of irrelevant anyway, as the Borg ignoring a ship is not what's wrong with the picture. It's the ship ignoring the Borg. The ship is not allowed to survive - if she does, then Starfleet will execute her crew for cowardice at the face of Armageddon and dismantle or rename the ship to hide the shame she brought to all humanoidkind.
In any case, a ship picking up the lifepods is not a solution to the problem at hand. The E-D picked up no sign of the survivors. Yet we know that Ben and Jake Sisko survived. It doesn't matter whether the Siskos were in a lifepod or in a starship, then - the reason the E-D does not know where they are is because they aren't telling. And it then becomes irrelevant whether a ship is refusing to transmit the fact that she has picked up survivors, or a lifepod is refusing to transmit the fact that it's there, ripe for picking. It's all down to stealth.
It's just that the lifepod-only option is consistent with the total lack of suggestion of surviving ships and the lack of expected action from a surviving/rescue ship, while the surviving/rescue ship option is inconsistent with that.
Timo Saloniemi
We also know the Borg never ignore non-threats ("Dark Frontier") but meticuously press on till the last cute puppy is assimilated. Which of these truths should we trust - the one speculated upon by our heroes in 2367, or the one told by one Borg to another in 2375?
It's sort of irrelevant anyway, as the Borg ignoring a ship is not what's wrong with the picture. It's the ship ignoring the Borg. The ship is not allowed to survive - if she does, then Starfleet will execute her crew for cowardice at the face of Armageddon and dismantle or rename the ship to hide the shame she brought to all humanoidkind.
In any case, a ship picking up the lifepods is not a solution to the problem at hand. The E-D picked up no sign of the survivors. Yet we know that Ben and Jake Sisko survived. It doesn't matter whether the Siskos were in a lifepod or in a starship, then - the reason the E-D does not know where they are is because they aren't telling. And it then becomes irrelevant whether a ship is refusing to transmit the fact that she has picked up survivors, or a lifepod is refusing to transmit the fact that it's there, ripe for picking. It's all down to stealth.
It's just that the lifepod-only option is consistent with the total lack of suggestion of surviving ships and the lack of expected action from a surviving/rescue ship, while the surviving/rescue ship option is inconsistent with that.
Timo Saloniemi
The real question is: Why could the Borg waste time assimilating a handful of escape pods when they have billions to assimilate on Earth, which is basically the capital world of the Federation?
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