They wouldn't have put the footage there (even if it was stock) if it wasn't intended to show what was going on.
Wolf 359 Questions
- Thread starter PhoenixIreland
- Start date
They wouldn't have put the footage there (even if it was stock) if it wasn't intended to show what was going on.
But the footage in question was not meant to represent Wolf 359 specifically. It was a montage of the memories of all the ex-drones on the colony. Only the humans and other UFP members from the group came from Wolf 359; the others were assimilated in other contexts, other parts of the galaxy. So there's no reason at all to assume that the Klingon footage represented the Battle of Wolf 359, any more than the shot of the little kid running through a grassy field or the shot of a Bajoran cityscape represented the Battle of Wolf 359.
(roughly) comme ca?
Sort of, but Earth, Mars, and Jupiter are "higher up" in their orbits relative to the Sun on the date in question (the Sun is at about, ohh, 4 o'clock relative to Earth, IIRC), and I was thinking more of a spiral that would go "over" Mars and the Sun as shown on the graphic. But you've got the rough idea.
I have a bigger Wolf-359 question.
Why did the Borg cube bother stopping there at all?
The Borg cube was traveling at up to Warp 9.6. A speed that not even the Enterprise could long sustain.
They could simply have flown straight to Earth and largely ignored the fleet at Wolf-359 as it is doubtful any of those ships shown could ever have kept up with the cube.
I believe as has been alluded to here at the Borg cube was not just traveling to Earth but were intent of systematically stripping Earth of all possible defenses before getting there.
Eliminate the fleet at Wolf-359. Eliminate the planetary defenses of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars.
I have another question.
Where were Earths defenses?
Mention is made of Earths defensive systems as having "become inoperative " in Star Trek: The Motion Picture when V'ger apparently deactivates them as it approaches.
In "Star Trek: The Voyage Home", spacedock apparently keeps ships handy to launch at an attacker.
As the Borg cube approached Earth, it should've been hammered from all sides by various weapons from Earth, Earth orbit, and the moon.
Why did the Borg cube bother stopping there at all?
The Borg cube was traveling at up to Warp 9.6. A speed that not even the Enterprise could long sustain.
They could simply have flown straight to Earth and largely ignored the fleet at Wolf-359 as it is doubtful any of those ships shown could ever have kept up with the cube.
I believe as has been alluded to here at the Borg cube was not just traveling to Earth but were intent of systematically stripping Earth of all possible defenses before getting there.
Eliminate the fleet at Wolf-359. Eliminate the planetary defenses of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars.
I have another question.
Where were Earths defenses?
Mention is made of Earths defensive systems as having "become inoperative " in Star Trek: The Motion Picture when V'ger apparently deactivates them as it approaches.
In "Star Trek: The Voyage Home", spacedock apparently keeps ships handy to launch at an attacker.
As the Borg cube approached Earth, it should've been hammered from all sides by various weapons from Earth, Earth orbit, and the moon.
If I were the Borg, that's what I'd do. Killing the Starfleet ships there would be a great idea, as you say, because then they wouldn't come and bother me when I assimilated their homeworld. Also, engaging, destroying and assimilating them would tell me a lot about Starfleet technology and tactics, perhaps more than I'd learn through assimilation of their planet.
The big question here is, why did Starfleet think the Borg would a) come through Wolf 359 and b) stop there?
We more or less have to assume that Wolf 359 lies at the exact beeline between Jouret and Earth, because Starfleet couldn't credibly make any other predictions besides a beeline approach. Which is nice, because it tells us where the fictional Jouret lies, when we already know where the real Earth and Wolf 359 are/will be in the 2360s.
And then we either have to assume that Starfleet had a surefire means of forcing the Borg out of warp, or then that they knew the Borg couldn't resist the temptation of a decisive engagement. But both of those assumptions are sort of iffy.
The camera joins the action only after the Cube has reached relatively low Earth orbit. It shouldn't be difficult to assume that the Borg had already destroyed the defenses at that point, just like they completely silenced Jupiter and Mars. With the big and medium guns gone, Earth might have stopped taking potshots and started preparing for a ground fight.
Timo Saloniemi
(roughly) comme ca?
Sort of, but Earth, Mars, and Jupiter are "higher up" in their orbits relative to the Sun on the date in question (the Sun is at about, ohh, 4 o'clock relative to Earth, IIRC), and I was thinking more of a spiral that would go "over" Mars and the Sun as shown on the graphic. But you've got the rough idea.
Hm. Makin' the Mars encounter a little hard to work out that way...
Unless they do an orbit or two of Jupiter before they boost to Mars, or just do a more radical course correction. I was trying to make it a smooth unpowered curve with a slingshot at Jupiter, but there's really no need for that with the kind of power a cube has.
Unless they do an orbit or two of Jupiter before they boost to Mars, or just do a more radical course correction. I was trying to make it a smooth unpowered curve with a slingshot at Jupiter, but there's really no need for that with the kind of power a cube has.
That's closer.
Okay, here's a screencap from Celestia showing the configuration of the planets on January 1, 2367 (on my own site, so I don't think it counts as hotlinking). I don't have a drawing program good enough to let me draw a decent curve (the best I can do is a palsied squiggle), so I leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Obviously I misremembered the Sun's position in my last post.
What if it spiralled inward, encountering each planet in its own orbit?
Star Trek ships can fight in warp, so 39 of them dogging its tail with photons firing may have been too big an annoyance not to deal with...just as one of us might stop to swat some misquitoes.
Err, yes, that's exactly what I proposed above. I distinctly remember using the word "spiral" at least twice. And Forbin's revised diagram is fairly close to the course I had in mind.
As regards that, didn't we actually the Cube heading outward as it passed Saturn? That is, coming from the lit side and moving towards the dark one? The two stills from TrekCore don't tell the whole story about that, but they sure show the Cube moving outward when it passes Mars - the light remains behind the Cube through that scene.
A steady spiral in towards Earth wouldn't really cut it, then.
Although from the DS9 duel between Sisko and Reynolds, one would get the impression that it's relatively simple to collapse an enemy's warp field, but that the drive isn't severely damaged by that and the enemy can get back to warp again after minimal repairs. So probably Locutus mainly stayed and fought because he thought it was strategically a good idea.
Timo Saloniemi
A steady spiral in towards Earth wouldn't really cut it, then.
Yes, it'd probably have to be lots and lots of standard weapons rather than some sort of a special gadget, from the story logic point of view. Although one would then assume that the wreckage of the battle would be spread over a lightyear or so, not concentrated within ten cubic kilometers deep in the Wolf 359 system. Perhaps Starfleet simply managed to fire a sufficiently devastating first barrage to force the Cube out of warp, after which Locutus stayed and fought until repairs were complete - which coincidentally was when the last Starfleet units fled the scene, too.
Although from the DS9 duel between Sisko and Reynolds, one would get the impression that it's relatively simple to collapse an enemy's warp field, but that the drive isn't severely damaged by that and the enemy can get back to warp again after minimal repairs. So probably Locutus mainly stayed and fought because he thought it was strategically a good idea.
Timo Saloniemi
There are so many things in Trek FX shots that are sheer nonsense that the visual information they contain is utterly useless as evidence for anything. At best, they're rough approximations that are "prettier" and more comprehensible than the actual image would be -- showing ships well-lit when they'd actually be in darkness, showing them close together when dialogue explicitly puts them tens of thousands of kilometers apart, making invisible energy effects visible, showing ships blow up from the saucer when it's supposed to be a warp core breach, showing them at impulse when they should be at warp, etc. So I only consider what's actually specified in dialogue. Since flybys of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars were explicitly mentioned, they must've happened. But they didn't have to look the way the FX shots showed them. I'm content to disregard the angle of the sunlight as mere dramatic license, or an out-and-out mistake.
If that's the case, then I'm speaking of something very different...the Cube literally more or less orbiting the Sun with each planet (but at much greater speed), methodically working its way inward in the process.
Or the Cube volunatarily took them on, seeing them as an annoyance that had to be dealt with before they could continue with their plans.
I gather you're talking about a tighter spiral with more loops, one past each planet. My only question is, why? That would be a vastly longer route and take much more time to complete. What possible advantage is there to meandering around like that? The Borg are supposed to value efficiency.
Besides, at the speeds you're proposing, it would be nothing like a literal orbit, and in fact it would take a great deal of energy to force the ship to follow a pseudo-orbital curve at that speed. The path I'm proposing actually does make relative sense in terms of orbital dynamics and motion in a gravity well, and would be closer to a minimum-energy trajectory for the desired itinerary. Again, efficiency.
^Points taken. I knew there were problems with the idea, which is why I proposed it in the form of a question.
I don't have a DVD handy. Was there actually a nearby star visible in the shots? I always thought that Wolf 359 was just the nearest star, rather than that the battle was necessarily fought inside the system.
Besides, just because you're in a given star system doesn't mean you're going to be in a part of that system where the star appears particularly bright. The Kuiper Belt (where Pluto resides) is in our Solar system, but from Pluto, the Sun appears as merely a bright pinpoint, brighter than other stars but still just another star. And Wolf 359 is a pretty dim star, less than a thousandth as bright as our Sun. Even from 1 AU, the distance of Earth from the Sun, Wolf 359 would be little more than a bright pinpoint.
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