Actually, it was Tilly who mentioned that Federation records showed the Khi'eth was sent to investigate a 'Dilithium nursery' within the Verubin nebula. So yes, both SF and the Federation knew where the ship was. The distress call ALSO mentioned the USS Hiraga Gennai contacting the Khi'eth 6 months before the actual distress call was sent and was supposed to reach them in 2 weeks, but was presumed destroyed trying to penetrate the nebula's radiation. A SF ship find out about Khi'eth (due to being relatively nearby), but never reached the ship probably as it was destroyed by the radiation when entering the nebula. This raises a question why hadn't Starfleet in those 5 odd years before the Burn sent another ship with sufficiently strong shields/system to rescue the Khi'eth? 1 attempt and that's it? No other ship received the distress call? The Khi'eth was obviously designed with strong shields and hull due to the nature of its mission (which is why it was able to enter the nebula and survive it for such a long time), so another SF ship could have been outfitted with necessary modifications (but by the 32nd century, you'd expect ALL SF ships to be immune to such nebulae), or the USS Hiraga should have known what kind of damage the Verubin nebula could do to a ship. Anyway, I guess we could postulate the distress call which was sent after the first failed rescue didn't reach anyone as the radiation may have damaged the equipment on board to a degree that it ended up distorted as it was leaving the nebula - and it was said the distress call was distorted by magnetic interference (from what, we don't know)... and by modulating the 'music' to the lowest frequency passing through the nebula from a neutron star, the Disco crew were able to extrapolate the original signal. Well, that leaves things on USS Hiraga, which may have been in continuous contact with the Khi'eth anyway due to the nature of the ship's mission, and if they were on route, why wouldn't the Hiraga then inform SF/Federation the Khi'eth was stranded so they could be advised on what to do? And after the Hiraga was presumed destroyed, or whatnot, SF could have sent another vessel to rescue the Khi'eth.
especially as Book’s ship could enter the nebula... But they did contact starfleet, otherwise how could Tilly know all this? this was before the Burn.
You keep saying that but its a stupid reason. If thats the best they can come up with then dont do that story line in the first place
I'd have to revisit it but losing ships seemed to cause a pretty big fear reaction. But, I could be misremembering. Just because the Federation was strong doesn't mean they can't overreact to a ship loss.
Anybody who doesn't think that "fear based decisions" by governments and populations isn't a real thing hasn't been alive a day for the past 50 years. Rationality typically has VERY little to do with decision making, based on my observations.
The older I get the more I realize this and the more people who go "Well, they should have just done that" really grinds my gears because it basically treats everyone as lacking emotion. It has become incredibly frustrating over the years because apparently fear is not something that is readily acknowledge in decision making process. I'm probably way oversensitive to it given my line of work but it frustrates me that it isn't acknowledged at all.
The problem is not that, just that there isn’t much to be afraid of here. They had the means to rescue that ship, they had the location and the motivation, so why didn’t they?
From what I am recalling a ship was sent but it was two weeks out to get to the nebula and was apparently destroyed. So, there was an attempt and they lost another ship. So, wouldn't you be afraid of losing another ship?
I don't think it really adds up here. If you are running out of dilitihum to the point that it's such a crisis that you are ordering all the scientists in the Federation to find a solution and losing member worlds because of it, that you wouldn't chase down every possible lead you could find (especially leads that are easily accessible via transwarp corridors)? Also, why would the admiral sitting in his chair at some starbase be pissing in his pants at the prospect of sending another ship to investigate why the first one was lost? It's one ship. A fleet admiral oversees, what, 10,000 ships? It just doesn't add up.
They did send another ship-it was destroyed. How many do you send? From reading this thread it appears that many if they were in charge would send the whole fleet and be OK with however many dying. I suppose that is the easiest part.
Given how dire the situation was I would think sending more ships would make sense (or maybe send a more powerful ship then the one that was destroyed and tell them to be more careful)? I mean, if things are so desperate that you are willing to lose Vulcan as a member world, I don't think the fleet admiral is going to think twice about sending some more people potentially to their deaths. in a position like that you are probably making decisions that affect a far greater number of lives daily.
This is what I aimed at in my reply (as to why it seemed like the USS Hiraga hadn't contacted Starfleet to inform them they were going to Verubin nebula to try and rescue the Khi'eth - because it seems to me that they hadn't, otherwise, SF would have dispatched another ship to investigate the disappearance of the USS Hiraga after it has been out of touch for a few weeks (which would have led SF to the Khi'eth and another potential rescue attempt). If they said a second rescue attempt (after the USS Hiraga) was attempted and failed, and the Verubin nebula classified as 'too dangerous' to go back into, that would solve the problem, but to me, that doesn't make much sense because SF wouldn't want to leave anyone behind, and as we know, the Khi'eth was equipped to handle the nebula, so surely SF could have modified one of their ships or sent a ship similar to the one Booker had with morphing capabilities to go in, grab the survivors, quickly download the data from the Khi'eth and bring back everyone.