Patrolling the Neutral Zone?

[James Wright]

During the war with the Dominion, before the Romulans joined with the Klingon Empire and Starfleet to fight starfleet sent patrols along the Romulan Neutral Zone. how close would ships have to approach the neutral zone before they could take sensor readings of what was happening beyond?
How did the starship Cairo get caught, couldn't they have seen an ambush coming?

JDW

 

[DonIago]

Isn't that what cloaking devices are for? Unless I'm misunderstanding you...

 

[James Wright]

Do the Jem Hadar use cloaking devices? If memory serves, they didn't use cloaking devices against the combined Cardasian-Romulan fleet when they attacked the Founders' homeworld.

JDW

 

[Jono]

You asked a similar question a couple of months ago http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=45236

We don't know why the Cairo didn't see the ambush. Maybe the Jem'Hadar hid near a conveniently placed neutron star or nebula. They might have jammed the ship's sensors or attacked when the ship was close to an object that interfered with its sensors. There is also the possibility they posed as Romulans or other starships and the Cairo only found out it was in trouble when they opened fire.

As for sensor ranges, I'm not sure. I can't think of any specific references from episodes as to the ranges they are capable of. The Argolis sensor array the Dominion built could detect ships over 5 sectors, so the furthest object it could detect would be around 100 light years from the station.

 

[James Wright]

Alright, lets try this, do you think the Jem Hadar used the same tactic to completely destroy the Cairo that was first employed against the starship Odsyssey?
From what I've been able to read on the internet nothing of Cairo survived!

JDW

 

[Lateralus]

Alright, lets try this, do you think the Jem Hadar used the same tactic to completely destroy the Cairo that was first employed against the starship Odsyssey?
From what I've been able to read on the internet nothing of Cairo survived!

JDW

Anything anybody tells you is going to be conjecture. So why are you asking a question that you know nobody knows the answer to?

If you're so concerned, shoot Ira Behr an e-mail. I'm sure he'll make up an explanation for you.

 

[Jono]

Alright, lets try this, do you think the Jem Hadar used the same tactic to completely destroy the Cairo that was first employed against the starship Odsyssey?
From what I've been able to read on the internet nothing of Cairo survived!

JDW

Do you mean ramming the ship? They might have but I doubt it. Given it was an ambush suggest that the Cairo was taken by surprise given the Jem'Hadar probably even of a tactical advantage to just blow it up the old fashion way.

The episode heavily suggests that by saying the "believed" the Jem'Hadar crossed the neutral zone to attack the ship, so it is unlikely any crew survived. Not surprising given the hostile environment space is for humanoids, the possibility of capture and that the Jem'Hadar don't mind destroying escape pods.

Anything anybody tells you is going to be conjecture. So why are you asking a question that you know nobody knows the answer to?

If you're so concerned, shoot Ira Behr an e-mail. I'm sure he'll make up an explanation for you.

If everyone just asked questions where there was a set answer there would be next to no discussion.

 

[James Wright]

I'm just trying to figure out what could destroy a starship and leave no trace of it, to the best of anyone's knowledge, did the ramming attack on the starship Odyssey leave anything to be recovered?

JDW

 

[-Brett-]

I'm just trying to figure out what could destroy a starship and leave no trace of it...

Space is vast. Unless you know exactly where to look for wreckage, you won't find it.

 

[Jono]

I'm just trying to figure out what could destroy a starship and leave no trace of it, to the best of anyone's knowledge, did the ramming attack on the starship Odyssey leave anything to be recovered?

JDW

As was said before space is big, it would take time to search and locate wreckage. There is also the possibility that the Cairo was captured mostly intact, as the Defiant was in One Little Ship.
​

As for the Odyssey, I think in the explosion you see the leading edge of the saucer fly towards the screen and a nacelle fly off after it explodes. Similar to the scenes when the Jem'Hadar rammed the Klingon ships. Even ships as small as the BOP had sections that survived the impact.

 

[Timo]

We might speculate that the space near the RNZ is especially hostile to subspace communications. In "The Enterprise Incident", the Romulans say Kirk's call for help wouldn't reach Starfleet until weeks later, while in "The Defector", Picard's chat with Admiral Haden suffers from a three-hour delay - this in strong contrast with the instantaneous communications everywhere else in Starfleet's known operational realm.

The delay might be due to natural causes, ion storms or the like. Or then the Romulans are heavily jamming subspace as a matter of course, either openly or then by trying to slip the jamming by as a natural phenomenon. Whatever the cause, it would be eminently possible for a starship to disappear mysteriously, then: she could get an SOS out, but the peculiarities of the environment would make it proceed at a snail's pace, and the Jem'Hadar could then chase after the SOS and jam it en route to deprive Starfleet of key intel.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anthony Sabre]

Couldn't the Jem'Hadar just do what everyone else does when they want to fool sensors? Reconfigure their warp drive to emit a warp field that would appear to be Romulan on a sensor sweep. That would allow them to lay in wait on the TNZ border and ambush unwary ships.

 

[nx1701g]

I'm just trying to figure out what could destroy a starship and leave no trace of it, to the best of anyone's knowledge, did the ramming attack on the starship Odyssey leave anything to be recovered?

JDW

It has been said on DS9 (I believe in the Maquis arc) that under some circumstances that a warp core breach can completely vaporize the parts of a starship.

 

[Timo]

For any "surprise attack" to remain a matter of speculation, the victim must perish without being able to tell the story. A ramming attack in "Jem'Hadar"/[/i]Odyssey[/i] style alone wouldn't cut it, as the victim would have lots of time to send out distress calls, recorder markers and whatnot. Communications jamming might not cut it, either, as recorder markers should still survive unless they remained in hostile territory, outside Starfleet reach.

But if the attack is deadly within the first few seconds, and if the enemy can then afford to loiter in the area, he can probably clean his tracks rather thoroughly. A warp core explosion might still leave a big debris cloud, as with the Horatio in "Conspiracy" - but the enemy might use energy weapons and tractor beams to remove most of that cloud afterwards. Or then the attack and explosion could happen while at warp, spreading the debris out too thinly to be observed...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[James Wright]

Starfleet should've sent a couple of Defiant class ships along with the Cairo as escort, how long do you think a patrol along the neutral zone would take?

JDW

 

[DonIago]

Starfleet was never shown as having a large number of Defiant-class ships in service, I doubt they could have spared a couple for escort duty.

 

[Jono]

For any "surprise attack" to remain a matter of speculation, the victim must perish without being able to tell the story. A ramming attack in "Jem'Hadar"/[/i]Odyssey[/i] style alone wouldn't cut it, as the victim would have lots of time to send out distress calls, recorder markers and whatnot. Communications jamming might not cut it, either, as recorder markers should still survive unless they remained in hostile territory, outside Starfleet reach.

But if the attack is deadly within the first few seconds, and if the enemy can then afford to loiter in the area, he can probably clean his tracks rather thoroughly. A warp core explosion might still leave a big debris cloud, as with the Horatio in "Conspiracy" - but the enemy might use energy weapons and tractor beams to remove most of that cloud afterwards. Or then the attack and explosion could happen while at warp, spreading the debris out too thinly to be observed...

Timo Saloniemi

Why would the Dominion want to cover their tracks? Given what Jadzia said in that episode the Dominion had mounted several raids through the Neutral Zone (I think her words were something like, "this is only the hundredth time"), so previous evidence must exist. I could understand it if it was pre-war, such as the ships disappearing mentioned in In the Cards, but with open war I don't see the point.

Romulans I could see doing that. Taking advantage of the situation to give their hated enemy a bloody nose.

I'm more in favour of it simply been that they hadn't found the wreckage yet. The Cairo might have only been noticed missing a day before the casualty report was released or that Starfleet simply didn't have the assets to do a thorough and quick search for the Cairo at that time.