Peak Performance: Why the torpedo tactic?

[CoveTom]

Okay, so we're doing "Peak Performance" line-by-line, and it got me to thinking...

If Worf could play his sensor game with the Ferengi ship and fool them into thinking another Federation starship -- a fully armed and functional one -- was closing, then why did they even bother with the convoluted trick of firing photon torpedoes at the Hathaway and relying on its somewhat uncertain warp capabilities to get it out of the way in time? That could have resulted in the deaths of everyone on that ship.

Instead, why didn't he just create a sensor image of three or four Federation ships approaching, scare the Ferengi off, and everyone be safe?

 

[USS Excelsior]

Maybe they thought that the Hathaway was destroyed so when they detected the Hathaway they thought it was another Starfleet ship.

 

[CoveTom]

^ No, they specifically said in the episode that Worf played his trick on their sensors to generate the fake ship.

 

[USS Excelsior]

Which makes it more odd since he wouldn't know their sensor codes to over-ride it.

 

[Vanyel]

Maybe they thought that the Hathaway was destroyed so when they detected the Hathaway they thought it was another Starfleet ship.

That's what I think happened too.

^ No, they specifically said in the episode that Worf played his trick on their sensors to generate the fake ship.

Which makes it more odd since he wouldn't know their sensor codes to over-ride it.

The line being "We only need a few minutes Mr. Worf because you are going to prepare another surprise for them." is a bit ambiguous. Worf could have done something like they did on DS9, make the ship look like it was armed and ready for a fight. That would go around him having to access their computers.

That, or seeing another ship dropping out of Warp, thinking it couldn't be the Hathaway because they just saw it destroyed, they could have jumped to the conclusion that another ship had just arrived. That would require that the Frengie not do a full scan to see that the ship was nothing more than moving junk.

 

[Alrik]

Okay, so we're doing "Peak Performance" line-by-line, and it got me to thinking...

If Worf could play his sensor game with the Ferengi ship and fool them into thinking another Federation starship -- a fully armed and functional one -- was closing, then why did they even bother with the convoluted trick of firing photon torpedoes at the Hathaway and relying on its somewhat uncertain warp capabilities to get it out of the way in time? That could have resulted in the deaths of everyone on that ship.

Instead, why didn't he just create a sensor image of three or four Federation ships approaching, scare the Ferengi off, and everyone be safe?

Drama!



Did I actually get that out with staight face? For the purpose of full disclosure, this ep is one of my guilty pleasures from season two, but it is also guilty of having plot holes you could drive a truck through. The two biggest, how did Worf know the codes, and why did they have to launch have been brought up. The short answer is, they had to make Riker first, but also Picard look like heros, while putting Kolrami in his place.

IIRC, the biggest problem in reality was, this was the second to last ep completed before the writers strike. I'm guessing that they were probably cranking things out a bit faster than normal and over looked a few things. I'm just going off of memory here, so I could be off, but that's what I seem to remember.

 

[CoveTom]

^ That sounds right to me.

I understand what others are saying about the possibility that the Ferengi were just being fooled by the Hathaway's trick, but the dialogue of the episode seems to clearly indicate Worf created a fake ship on their sensors. I mean, the whole point of his doing that to the Enterprise earlier in the episode seems to set up that particular solution. And after the Ferengi are fooled, and Lieutenant Burke reports seeing no other Federation ships on sensors, Riker even comments "Of course not, Mr. Burke, that was Klingon guile." Seems pretty clear that a repeat of Worf's earlier sensor trick is what they were going for.

Still, as you point out, the earlier trick only worked because Worf new the Enterprise's sensor codes, and it was implied that once Data changed them he wouldn't be able to do it again. Now I suppose you could argue that the Ferengi systems were much less sophisticated and that Worf was able to penetrate them, but it does still seem a bit of a stretch. And if it didn't require sensor code access to pull that trick, why weren't they always doing it to every Romulan, Klingon, Cardassian, or whatever ship of the week that threatened them?

Oh, well. Like you, I really like the episode, but it does have some pretty significant plot holes. Not to mention... what exactly is the point of a war game exercise where one opponent is given a piece of crap ship that doesn't stand a chance? I understand the idea is to see how innovative Riker can be, but still if the game had been allowed to continue and Wesley had not pulled his little stunt, the Hathaway wouldn't have stood a chance. It's like training the Enterprise people for battle against an unarmed scout ship.

 

[Timo]

Well, the point of the exercise apparently wasn't to train the E-D crew in generic space combat, but to teach the crew something about anti-Borg operations. And pitting an old Constellation against a Galaxy is probably the closest thing one can use as a simulation for pitting a Galaxy against a Borg cube...

As for the necessity of firing torps at the Hathaway, that's basic Ferengi psychology for you. The Ferengi have their eyes on the prize all the time. The appearance of more starships might not have scared them away if the prize still was there. Indeed, the Ferengi might have chosen to do what Picard appeared to do - destroy the prize so that the winner couldn't get to it. And then Riker would be dead for real. Much better to preempt that very likely outcome...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CaptainStoner]

I just re-watched this one also, and I also don't see how it's established that risking the Hathaway crew with the torpedo tactic was preferable to leaving them, at least temporarily, to the Ferengi vessel. The Ferengi were clearly going to check the ship out and salvage it, not destroy it, and they would certainly keep valuable prisoners. Riker's crew would have been captured, but they could probably still get them back if the price was right.
The implication was that the torpedo tactic was very uncertain, and certain death if if failed. It just didn't weigh out against backing away.

 

[Gil T.Azell]

Well, the point of the exercise apparently wasn't to train the E-D crew in generic space combat, but to teach the crew something about anti-Borg operations. And pitting an old Constellation against a Galaxy is probably the closest thing one can use as a simulation for pitting a Galaxy against a Borg cube...

As for the necessity of firing torps at the Hathaway, that's basic Ferengi psychology for you. The Ferengi have their eyes on the prize all the time. The appearance of more starships might not have scared them away if the prize still was there. Indeed, the Ferengi might have chosen to do what Picard appeared to do - destroy the prize so that the winner couldn't get to it. And then Riker would be dead for real. Much better to preempt that very likely outcome...

Timo Saloniemi

Making look like they killed their own to take away the Ferengi prize, would make the Hew-mon's look more ruthless, so mabe next time they'd think twice in their dealing with Hew-mons.

or I'd guess they didn't want even 'old' techology falling into the Ferengi's hands, so they made it look that way to deceive them?

 

[Unicron]

Why does one need sensor codes to create this sort of illusion? It's certainly one way to do it, but I imagine there are plenty of instances where this same idea came up and worked regardless of having access to the enemy's sensor codes. The closest instance I can think of at the moment is how the crew of DS9 tried to fool the Cardassians in "Emissary" by making it seem like the station's weapons had been repaired by Starfleet.

 

[Timo]

The Enterprise could no doubt have created holographic decoys to scare the Ferengi - much like the Voyager later did against the Kazon. Such a trick would only fool a sophisticated enemy for a short time, but this would be enough in the case of "Peak Performance".

However, I can't see the outdated Hathaway doing anything similar. And creating a decoy of some other sort would probably still require 24th century systems in order to be effective against 24th century sensors and analysis computers. While O'Brien didn't have much to work with in "Emissary", either, at least the machinery available to him didn't date back to the previous century...

Of course, it's possible that Worf didn't have to limit himself to Hathaway systems. He might have created the decoy by using the systems of the Enterprise on remote, no doubt through the same sorts of backdoors that he had utilized in his earlier, Enterprise-fooling trick.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[David]

The Enterprise could no doubt have created holographic decoys to scare the Ferengi - much like the Voyager later did against the Kazon. Such a trick would only fool a sophisticated enemy for a short time, but this would be enough in the case of "Peak Performance".

Yes but in Voyagers case they had to install the emitters on the hull to project the Talaxian ships.

Cheers

Dave

 

[Unicron]

However, I can't see the outdated Hathaway doing anything similar. And creating a decoy of some other sort would probably still require 24th century systems in order to be effective against 24th century sensors and analysis computers. While O'Brien didn't have much to work with in "Emissary", either, at least the machinery available to him didn't date back to the previous century...

Of course, it's possible that Worf didn't have to limit himself to Hathaway systems. He might have created the decoy by using the systems of the Enterprise on remote, no doubt through the same sorts of backdoors that he had utilized in his earlier, Enterprise-fooling trick.

Those are valid points, Timo. One might also infer that the Ferengi systems are perhaps not quite as advanced as Starfleet ones, and this is why the Picard Maneuver worked at Maxia Zeta - the Ferengi sensors were fooled into seeing two Stargazers briefly when the ship went into warp, and fired on the illusion as Picard had hoped they would. In that case, perhaps it would be easier to spring this sort of sensor ghost on them.

 

[Timo]

Yet Ferengi ships are indicated to be very fast in galactic terms - the match of the E-D in "Menage a Troi", and very fast in "Little Green Men" as well. They'd certainly need top-notch FTL sensors to cope.

The Picard Maneuver would be made possible if said FTL sensors suffered battle damage, though. And that in turn is eminently possible - and also readily observable by Picard's Stargazer, because FTL sensors are likely to be "active" ones, their emissions (or the sudden cessation thereof) being detectable by the targeted ship.

I doubt a ship that dared challenge a (what looked like) fully operational Galaxy class supership would have suffered from inferior sensors, either... Or, alternately, if the Ferengi did know the E-D was subtly disabled, then their sensors were good enough to discern this. A difficult opponent for Worf's decoy tactics in either case.

In the end, I'd say the technology of the deception wasn't the crucial thing here: understanding Ferengi psychology was. Depriving the Ferengi of their prize would have been enough to send them away, and adding the possibility of being routed by an additional Starfleet ship was just icing on the cake. Or then the straw that broke the camel's back. But the mere threat of yet another enemy vessel would never have worked, not psychologically. The Hathaway had to be removed from the equation first.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vanyel]

Do FTL sensors work at close range? I mean if something is close enough that, non FTL sensors can give data in real time, would the non FTL sensors be used? Also at such a close range that the Picard Maneuver is used, could it also "fool" FTL sensors by not giving the opposition crew time enough to read the change in data.

The 1701D was able to stop the Stargazer, because its tractor beam could hold the Stargazer and Data could react fast enough to catch it. Although why they just didn't just Warp Jump away and come warp back and catch the Stargazer; or just tractor her once they saw that Picard was on board and thinking he was at the Battle of Maxia, I'll never know.

 

[Timo]

Given the general rules of Star Trek, there would have been a thousand ways for the E-D to win the battle against the Stargazer. But that was never Riker's goal in the episode.

There would have been no benefit from defeating the Stargazer, an old tub that posed no realistic danger to anybody, unless that act also saved Picard's life and preferably his career as well. Saving Picard would have been Riker's sole goal. And in order to do that, his best shot was to keep Picard predictable - that is, play along the rules of Picard's make-believe and pretend that the Battle of Maxia was really being re-fought here. Picard would have to be allowed to do the Picard Maneuver, then - or else he would invent something even more foolhardy and get himself killed.

Apparently, tractor beams have limited range and don't grab shielded targets too well (both here and in other episodes), so getting a grip of the Stargazer at any other point of the "battle" would not have been an option. Picard had to come close, or allow the E-D to come close, and the Picard Maneuver would be a good way to reach that goal.

The idea about FTL sensors shutting down during short range encounters, or at least going down the priority list of tools the tactical analysis computer would use, is a pretty good one. OTOH, an enemy starship could easily move across several lightseconds during a crucial split second in the encounter, and STL sensors couldn't cope with that sort of movement - so FTL should always be capable of kicking back in within said split second. So the Picard Maneuver shouldn't work against a well-prepared ship... Unless we assume that FTL sensors cannot focus at nearby targets at all, which is also a pretty plausible idea.

Timo Saloniemi