Why is it always Wolf 359?
- Thread starter WarpTenLizard
- Start date
Operation Return.
I would reiterate the cliche that Wolf 359 was the Federation's 9/11. Starfleet was caught off guard and in the aftermath many policies were probably revised, like having families aboard. I also think it definitively put a nail in the coffin on the idea that Starfleet was not military. That's not to say future events were not traumatic, like the second Borg invasion or the Dominion War, but Starfleet and the Federation were more prepared those times (likely Starfleet became accustomed to its military role once again).
The only TNG-recent conflicts we know about were the various wars with the Cardassians, Talarians, Tholians, Tzenkethi, and the Erselrope wars (whatever that is. And we don't even know if those wars were with the Federation.) And of all those, the only other conflict we know of with a specific name was the Setlik III massacre, and that seemed to be localized to just one planet.
Sure but there was only one that stood out as the changing point in the Federation's relationship with the Borg and the galaxy at large. Where we see them move towards more combat oriented procedures, and dedicated warships. WOLF 359 might not be the only battle but it was a large one with huge impacts going forward. An enemy that could not be negotiated with but simply destroyed.
Exactly. The impact is more than the event itself.
Which was indirectly referenced on Picard S3.
40 starships lost, and at the time it was presented as being a major blow, even though 'they would have the fleet back up in less than a year'.
True enough, about five years later they were sporting 600-ship fleets (though perhaps not all starships) and implying that was just one of the fleets ...
True enough, about five years later they were sporting 600-ship fleets (though perhaps not all starships) and implying that was just one of the fleets ...
All those conflicts take place between 2347 and 2357, and only 3 years prior is the Battle of Narendra III, resulting in the lost of the Ent-C. Aside from being a turbulent 13 years with wars occurring on multiple fronts for the Federation, there is no indication that these wars were traumatic for the participants, aside from the Cardassian Wars. The Battle of Wolf 359 is a more traumatic event, with heavier losses than the wars and battles that preceded it.
The realest answer is the VOY writers weren't paying attention and were unjustifiably desperate to do lazy continuity porn for the premise of a Starfleet vessel being ~60,000 light years away from home. I really hate how many VOY episodes use the Wolf 359 scenario when it added nothing to the plot to justify small universe syndrome. (grumble grumble the Amelia Earheart episode also should not have been in the Delta Quadrant)
This is a reasonable deduction! But it's an entirely after-the-fact line of reasoning! The obvious point of "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2" as presented for itself was that the Enterprise-D crew successfully neutralized the Borg invasion by blowing up everything they sent. There is absolutely nothing in the TNG episode about the Borg fielding smaller craft even in scenarios where smaller craft would be useful. VOY on its own makes no sense in the context of TNG with what we have canonically.
Exactly! They should have dropped in a line about this when Chakotay met Riley Frazier! Chakotay himself is former Starfleet. He should have asked how Frazier could be alive when the Wolf 359 cube was blown to dust for everyone to see.
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fleets that were predominantly excelsior and miranda class ships. which is why so many of us fans figure that those massive fleets were originally created as a stopgap to fight the borg.. pulling every still viable ship out of mothball yards, giving them quickie refits to update the shields and weapons. making use of over a century's worth of prior ship construction. while they'd not last very long in an actual battle with a cube, every platform able to fire phasers and launch torpedoes would have been useful, and if you have enough of them firing at once you could still do a lot of damage from the initial hits before the borg adapt.. and if they are all using different frequency hopping patterns, you have a very good chance of a significant portion of that fire getting through. (which would also help explain the use of 'fighters'.. the maquis showed that you could use armed shuttles and other small craft to take down much bigger targets. so the federation adopted a similar principle in their anti-borg fleets in order to increase the amount of firepower even further)
I think Starfleet's tactics at Wolf 359 were to use a few ships to attack, and keep going in waves. Look at "EMISSARY" and how the battle goes... there's never more than 2 or 3 ships attacking the cube at once at any given time. This proved fruitless against the cube, as it already had adapted to Starfleet using Picard's knowledge.
When Starfleet attacked the Borg in FIRST CONTACT, their tactics were clearly different. It was like a swarm of bees attacking a single object.
When Starfleet attacked the Borg in FIRST CONTACT, their tactics were clearly different. It was like a swarm of bees attacking a single object.
I wouldn't read too much into the tactics as seen in Emissary vs First Contact. That's comparing a TV show using physical models to a movie using CG.
That kind of attack feels more like a budget kind of thing, more ships and effects would need more money.
Agreed that budget was an issue. I'm just speculating on an in-universe reason why we saw so few ships engage the cube at once.
Maybe it's because they're only a few hundred meters long and they're THOUSANDS OF METERS APART.
Fortunately headcanon is allowed. =)