Was Earth defenseless?

[BillJ]

It's probably well known that Earth had a computer-based defense systems, and it's probably very common.

130 years in the past... I'd say your stretching what a common Romulan miner would know by quite a bit.

But how often would one consider a drill to be an obvious vulnerable spot?

How could anyone not consider it a vulnerable spot? Since it would be vulnerable to atmospheric conditions, why would it be any less susceptible organized attack?

It's also possible that he dismissed it as vulterable because nobody would be foolish enough to fly to the drill (assumedly they would be easily spotted), and beaming would be impossible while the drill was being used, so nobody could beam onto it.

Yet Starfleet had no problem skydiving onto it and I can't believe for a moment that they didn't watch the three skydivers disembark the shuttle as it was flying over to the Narada.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

BillJ,

Nobody EVER thinks of everything, and what YOU believe YOU would think of may not match what HE may think of. Or I, or the man next to you.

To presume otherwise, and your position implies, would be a form of self-projectionist arrogance unworthy of any logical thinker.

RE: Common Knowledge: It could have been something that is well known, such as the fact that you have to show a passport when entering another country, or that a police officer needs a reason to pull you over.

It would seem likely that any system would need some kind of code or password to get into it, and that someone high up in an organization that controls said gate would hold that information.

RE: The Drill

As someone who is NOT A SOLDIER, he may not consider the drill to be a weak point.

In addition, we don't know how the Narada's own sensors would be affected in the proximity of the drill, which may make 3 small 2-meter objects descending from a shuttle in a debrit field virtually invisible.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

^^Disruptor rifles were used to disable the drill, not destroy it. And they were fired at point blank range. I highly doubt someone on the surface of Vulcan or Earth armed with a hand phaser would be able to do any damage at all. The drill was over the San Francisco bay and if a cadet at the academy had used a hand phaser to shoot at it the phaser bolt would probably dissipate to near zero energy level by the time it hit the drill. Hand held phasers have a very limited range.

I could see someone at a university wheeling out a physics experiment and taking pot-shots at the drill... or even better someone in a vintage aircraft on a hobby-flight over the bay taking shots at it with a personal weapon.

I have a hard time believing that NO ONE took a shot at the drill. At all. Hell my Redneck Neighbor took a shot at that low-flying blimp with his Good Rifle. That was just a freaking blimp not an Alien Bent On Destruction.

Of course this is not the true historical record of the event it's a made-for-entertainment movie.

"In Reality" all of the things I mentioned above actually happened and a coordinated attack by the Enterprise the Jellyfish and a handful of civilian ships forced the Narada out of orbit where Vigorous Justice was applied. Reality being my tabletop RPG.

What would anyone use to take potshots at that drill without the Narada intercepting such a weapon easily.

Skydiving out of a shuttlecraft at close range, with personnel too small to be observed clearly in a radiation-filled trash field, with the drill's own radiation adding to the sensory confusion, seems more likely to succeed here.

 

[Timo]

Nero might not be much of a warrior, but if there's one thing he did know with perfect clarity, it would be the strengths and vulnerabilities of his mining hardware.

It cannot have come as a surprise to Nero that handguns would defeat his attempt at inserting red matter through a planet's crust. But he may have had misconceptions about how easy or difficult it would be to bring handguns to bear on the drill. Spotting the three skydivers without advance warning might be beyond the capabilities of the mining ship's sensing systems (although they should have been seen ejecting from the shuttle that must have been at the very focus of those sensing systems). But if Nero couldn't see the skydivers, it should follow that all sorts of small aircraft could get past him as well - and he should probably realize that.

On Earth, a hand phaser might not have hurt the drill enough. But there's a Starfleet installation right under the beam, and it would be implausible to think there wouldn't be armaments there. Not dedicated anti-boring-machine-from-the-future weapons, but generic stuff that would more than suffice. Say, if even one of those shuttles was left unlaunched when the cadets flew off, it could have been piloted to the drill and, if necessary, rammed into it. End of Nero's Plan A (although he could then rain red matter on Earth's surface and seriously inconvenience mankind).

Nero might not be privy to Starfleet strengths and weaknesses - he wouldn't have had much time to go through the information he tortured out of Pike, and he might not be skilled enough to put together what he got from his possibly hundreds of previous captives. But Nero would know his own strengths and weaknesses, and would realize that one doesn't need Starfleet to foil his plans. A fellow Romulan miner could have done that with Romulan mining gear, and Nero could absolutely count on Earth having at least something comparable.

Timo Saloniemi

P.S. There's another interpretation of the Vulcan scenes that makes the drill less vulnerable. Perhaps the rifles fired by Kirk and Sulu did nothing to the drill? Perhaps Nero's henchman simply chose to stop drilling, because he had reached his target - and afterwards reported to Nero that oh, there had been some sabotage there as well, nothing of consequence, the plan is moving smoothly.

 

[BillJ]

BillJ,

Nobody EVER thinks of everything, and what YOU believe YOU would think of may not match what HE may think of. Or I, or the man next to you.

To presume otherwise, and your position implies, would be a form of self-projectionist arrogance unworthy of any logical thinker.

RE: Common Knowledge: It could have been something that is well known, such as the fact that you have to show a passport when entering another country, or that a police officer needs a reason to pull you over.

It would seem likely that any system would need some kind of code or password to get into it, and that someone high up in an organization that controls said gate would hold that information.

RE: The Drill

As someone who is NOT A SOLDIER, he may not consider the drill to be a weak point.

In addition, we don't know how the Narada's own sensors would be affected in the proximity of the drill, which may make 3 small 2-meter objects descending from a shuttle in a debrit field virtually invisible.

You're just being apologetic towards the film here. Nero has enough military knowledge when it suits your point, but doesn't have enough when it goes against what you're saying.

Then everyone forgets that it's not only Nero on the mining vessel... there looks to be a crew of at least a dozen around him. Someone should have been scanning the shuttle as it came across to the Narada. And it ejecting three two meter objects should have been a point of concern as they could have easily been torpedoes.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

BillJ,

Nobody EVER thinks of everything, and what YOU believe YOU would think of may not match what HE may think of. Or I, or the man next to you.

To presume otherwise, and your position implies, would be a form of self-projectionist arrogance unworthy of any logical thinker.

RE: Common Knowledge: It could have been something that is well known, such as the fact that you have to show a passport when entering another country, or that a police officer needs a reason to pull you over.

It would seem likely that any system would need some kind of code or password to get into it, and that someone high up in an organization that controls said gate would hold that information.

RE: The Drill

As someone who is NOT A SOLDIER, he may not consider the drill to be a weak point.

In addition, we don't know how the Narada's own sensors would be affected in the proximity of the drill, which may make 3 small 2-meter objects descending from a shuttle in a debrit field virtually invisible.

You're just being apologetic towards the film here. Nero has enough military knowledge when it suits your point, but doesn't have enough when it goes against what you're saying.

Then everyone forgets that it's not only Nero on the mining vessel... there looks to be a crew of at least a dozen around him. Someone should have been scanning the shuttle as it came across to the Narada. And it ejecting three two meter objects should have been a point of concern as they could have easily been torpedoes.

Nothing was established onscreen explicitly what he knew, didn't know, what is common knowledge or otherwise.

Your opinions are based purely on assumptions that are NOT as obvious as you paint them to be.

As for "Should have scanned", AGAIN, we are looking through a debrit field and extensive sensory interference from drill. Interference that, as established IN THE FILM, is disrupting long range communications.

If you're looking at a blurry image of blobs, most of which are noted as debrit, with equipment that is encountering a lot of interference, it is possible that 3, two-meter objects pulled as Gravity might predict, could simply go unobserved.

And I am NOT assuming ANY military knowledge beyond common assumptions/guesses/likelihoods/whatever.

We all assume the President has some kind of bunker, even if we have no details of it.

But most of us would not know the weak spot of any particular military vehicle.

To be blunt, I don't buy your assessment of what Nero would or would not know or think about.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

Nero might not be much of a warrior, but if there's one thing he did know with perfect clarity, it would be the strengths and vulnerabilities of his mining hardware.

It cannot have come as a surprise to Nero that handguns would defeat his attempt at inserting red matter through a planet's crust. But he may have had misconceptions about how easy or difficult it would be to bring handguns to bear on the drill. Spotting the three skydivers without advance warning might be beyond the capabilities of the mining ship's sensing systems (although they should have been seen ejecting from the shuttle that must have been at the very focus of those sensing systems). But if Nero couldn't see the skydivers, it should follow that all sorts of small aircraft could get past him as well - and he should probably realize that.

On Earth, a hand phaser might not have hurt the drill enough. But there's a Starfleet installation right under the beam, and it would be implausible to think there wouldn't be armaments there. Not dedicated anti-boring-machine-from-the-future weapons, but generic stuff that would more than suffice. Say, if even one of those shuttles was left unlaunched when the cadets flew off, it could have been piloted to the drill and, if necessary, rammed into it. End of Nero's Plan A (although he could then rain red matter on Earth's surface and seriously inconvenience mankind).

Nero might not be privy to Starfleet strengths and weaknesses - he wouldn't have had much time to go through the information he tortured out of Pike, and he might not be skilled enough to put together what he got from his possibly hundreds of previous captives. But Nero would know his own strengths and weaknesses, and would realize that one doesn't need Starfleet to foil his plans. A fellow Romulan miner could have done that with Romulan mining gear, and Nero could absolutely count on Earth having at least something comparable.

Timo Saloniemi

P.S. There's another interpretation of the Vulcan scenes that makes the drill less vulnerable. Perhaps the rifles fired by Kirk and Sulu did nothing to the drill? Perhaps Nero's henchman simply chose to stop drilling, because he had reached his target - and afterwards reported to Nero that oh, there had been some sabotage there as well, nothing of consequence, the plan is moving smoothly.

Such defenses Starfleet would have would likely be under automated, central control, which those pesky codes would have disabled.

 

[BillJ]

Such defenses Starfleet would have would likely be under automated, central control, which those pesky codes would have disabled.

As long as everyone is running Windows 23rd Century Edition. Does everyone's computers operate exactly the same across 130 years and hundreds of light years?

 

[OneBuckFilms]

Such defenses Starfleet would have would likely be under automated, central control, which those pesky codes would have disabled.

As long as everyone is running Windows 23rd Century Edition. Does everyone's computers operate exactly the same across 130 years and hundreds of light years?

How old is email? Or the WWW?

We know STARSHIPS can last that long (Oberth, Excelsior and Miranda Class ships have been seen in TNG, DS9 and Voyager, dispite being 23rd Century ships), and ship's computers have talked to far, far older hardware than even that.

So that is irrelevent, IMHO.

 

[BillJ]

Such defenses Starfleet would have would likely be under automated, central control, which those pesky codes would have disabled.

As long as everyone is running Windows 23rd Century Edition. Does everyone's computers operate exactly the same across 130 years and hundreds of light years?

How old is email? Or the WWW?

We know STARSHIPS can last that long (Oberth, Excelsior and Miranda Class ships have been seen in TNG, DS9 and Voyager, dispite being 23rd Century ships), and ship's computers have talked to far, far older hardware than even that.

So that is irrelevent, IMHO.

It's irrelevant that a simple miner (Nero really missed his calling, shoulda been a Romulan Admiral) can make two totally alien (and most likely incompatible) technologies talk to one another? In order to use those command codes you need a terminal that is running Starfleet software to log into.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

As long as everyone is running Windows 23rd Century Edition. Does everyone's computers operate exactly the same across 130 years and hundreds of light years?

How old is email? Or the WWW?

We know STARSHIPS can last that long (Oberth, Excelsior and Miranda Class ships have been seen in TNG, DS9 and Voyager, dispite being 23rd Century ships), and ship's computers have talked to far, far older hardware than even that.

So that is irrelevent, IMHO.

It's irrelevant that a simple miner can make two totally alien (and most likely incompatible) technologies talk to one another?

As a Miner, he may have had trade contacts that necessitated communication over who-knows-what protocols/systems, and goodness knows what languages.

Plus he had past interaction with Spock, potentially giving him some access to general Federation databases and interoperability setups.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

Incidently, assuming that Commerce is taking place, and second-hand ships from Earth likely are used by both Humand and Aliens (they all need Dilithium for their warp cores, right?), talking to a Human Computer may be a general function of almost any computer system worth it's salt.

 

[BillJ]

How old is email? Or the WWW?

We know STARSHIPS can last that long (Oberth, Excelsior and Miranda Class ships have been seen in TNG, DS9 and Voyager, dispite being 23rd Century ships), and ship's computers have talked to far, far older hardware than even that.

So that is irrelevent, IMHO.

It's irrelevant that a simple miner can make two totally alien (and most likely incompatible) technologies talk to one another?

As a Miner, he may have had trade contacts that necessitated communication over who-knows-what protocols/systems, and goodness knows what languages.

Plus he had past interaction with Spock, potentially giving him some access to general Federation databases and interoperability setups.

You're really stretching credibility here...

They could have solved alot of the story issues by simply using the Borg backstory for the Narada from Countdown.

 

[BillJ]

Incidently, assuming that Commerce is taking place, and second-hand ships from Earth likely are used by both Humand and Aliens (they all need Dilithium for their warp cores, right?), talking to a Human Computer may be a general function of almost any computer system worth it's salt.

Actually, Romulans use quantum singularities per TNG.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

It's irrelevant that a simple miner can make two totally alien (and most likely incompatible) technologies talk to one another?

As a Miner, he may have had trade contacts that necessitated communication over who-knows-what protocols/systems, and goodness knows what languages.

Plus he had past interaction with Spock, potentially giving him some access to general Federation databases and interoperability setups.

You're really stretching credibility here...

They could have solved alot of the story issues by simply using the Borg backstory for the Narada from Countdown.

They could have, and I think that's why Countdown was written.

Not canon, but provides an explanation for those who want the "dirty details".

Anyway, we know about the Universal Translator, with the countless thousands of languages, and heuristics for previously unknown languages/dialects, and how common that kind of translation.

Communications between computer systems is presumably considerably less complex, so a similar approach is also highly plausible.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

Incidently, assuming that Commerce is taking place, and second-hand ships from Earth likely are used by both Humand and Aliens (they all need Dilithium for their warp cores, right?), talking to a Human Computer may be a general function of almost any computer system worth it's salt.

Actually, Romulans use quantum singularities per TNG.

What do the Breen use? Vulcans? Tellarites? Who-knows-what?

They get their business somewhere.

 

[Timo]

Such defenses Starfleet would have would likely be under automated, central control, which those pesky codes would have disabled.

This is categorically untrue both in Trek in general, and in this movie in particular.

Some tech manuals have tried to claim that hand phasers aboard a starship might be under central control and could not be brought to lethal status without central authorization, but the episodes prove this to be untrue. Shuttlecraft are also always outside the reach of central control, and e.g. retrieving an unco-operating one is never possible under remote control.

In the movie, Earth defense codes never paralyzed the guns of the Enterprise. But even without the sudden appearance of a starship, Earth ought to have been teeming with smaller vessels that could counterattack in the manner Spock's future ship did, unhindered by defense codes.

What Nero could hope to achieve with those codes would be aggressive information warfare. Just telling all the defense guns to shut down would be futile: manual overrides would restore them in a matter of seconds. But if Nero knew how to send a command that tells every defensive fortress to self-destruct, and every defensive sensor system to lock on a self-jamming mode, then he could indeed achieve something. Perhaps he could even tell Earth's defenses to shoot down any small craft that Earth tries to send against him.

This, however, is way beyond what we could consider plausible capabilities for our future miner. It's quite possible he would have a commercial program or two that are optimized for ruining enemy centralized systems - that'd be a very Romulan thing to carry on a mining vessel that may have to compete for mining opportunities! But the ability to prevent every shuttlecraft in San Francisco from taking off merely by information warfare means must be beyond Nero.

If we want these parts of the movie to make sense, we must look elsewhere for explanations on why the grassroots-level defenses did not react. Possibly Nero had other arrows in his quiver for defending his drill, and those for some reason had a blind spot for attacks from the direction of the Narada itself (from which both the skydivers and Spock's ship approached)? As many have suggested, the jamming properties of the drill itself might create that blind spot.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jerikka Dawn]

I got confused a few minutes ago and need some clarification ....

Romulan computer systems talking to Starfleet computer systems, and Romulan communications devices talking to Starfleet communications devices ....

after 45 years of this franchise where virtually every computer and communications system was seen as capable of communications with each other regardless of "protocol" or "technology" -- this is now a concern?

 

[doublegoodprole]

The problem is that many Star Trek fans are unaware of the Communication Reception Adaptive Protocol. Invented in 2140 and adopted by all starfaring races of the galaxy by 2150, the Communication Reception Adaptive Protocol was instrumental in both the founding of the Federation and the development of 3-D chess, tricorders, and synthehol.

 

[doublegoodprole]

Who kills threads? I KILL THREADS.