The Star Trek Puzzler

[Ted C]

Easy...

1) Assemble a fleet composed of Galaxy, interpids and Nebulas. PUlling togeter atleast 60 should be sufficent.

This part, at least, is logistically feasible, since you have six months to gather ships.

2) Arm all the ships with Tri-cobalt torpedoes

Presumably *all* Federation starship carry tri-cobalt devices, since Voyager happened to have some lying around when she got sucked into the Delta Quadrant. Again, no problem.

3) Warp into target zone. Half of the fleet attackes any defenses the shipyards have. the other half transports mariens into the stations where they take it over and set charges.

Here you have a problem. You have failed to deal with the possibility of interception by defending starships. This might be less of a problem against the Empire, since their drive speeds are so incompatible (Imperial ships are either going much faster or much slower than warp speed), but the Borg certainly have the ability to intercept and attack warp-driven starships.

As others have noted, we have never seen any sign of a Federation marine. Please cite the televised episode in which YOU saw them. It might also help to explain how you expect your marines to defeat the defenders of the enemy installations, be they Borg or Imperial Stormtroopers.

4) Withdraw to friendly territory if nessesary ( although it proably wont be). The Tri-Cobalt torps should reduce any of the enemy starships to broken hulks. And with out their resupply and repair base they are effectly out of the fight. Threat removed.

The only thing we've ever seen a tri-cobalt torpedo is an unmanned, immobile, and (as far as we know) unshielded space station. This is hardly comparable to a Borg cube or Imperial warship as a target. The simple fact that we have *never* seen a tri-cobalt device used in combat against an enemy starship indicates that they would be useless for such a purpose. They are demolition devices, not weapons. This is the lamest aspect of your whole proposal.

Try something harder

TJ

This last bit is simply trolling, since your plan is so poorly realized. I have to wonder if you're the real thing or just some jerk invoking the name.

[EmperorMing]

I would suggest using the outlawed subspace weapons that are supposedly so dangerous.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

I would suggest using the outlawed subspace weapons that are supposedly so dangerous.

The big problem with that being that they'd be just as dangerous to their users as they would to the victims, or possibly more so against Imperial ships, which use subspace technology only for comms in this situation AFAIK. (If I have this right, their main communications are the Holonet, but in the AQ there is no Holonet, so they'd have to rely on subspace comms. Now if you're going to go after their communications, you'd better have whole rafts of insanely brilliant people working on cryptanalysis, because Imperial communications are certainly encrypted, and even six months of round-the-clock work by thousands of people as smart as Einstein might not be able to break their ciphers. Of course, you could always jam their comms, assuming you can find the transmission frequencies...

[The Yosemite Bear]

One unless you have some form of Deus Ex Machina working for you (Like Voyager), against the Borg with federation vessels. is scuicide, and riders on Horseback delivering sudden messages doesn't happen in reality.

Now against Starwars vessels, your vessels are fucked, the output and shielding your looking at Fly vs. Windshield.

[Ted C]

Well, since I've had very few ideas from the audience, I'll submit my own thoughts on the subject.

1) Use subspace telescopes such as the ones seen in "The Nth Degree" and "Parallels" to monitor enemy activity at the base.

2) Immediately re-test the soliton wave generator from "New Ground" to see if they energy accumulation effect is consistent. If it is, begin construction of several more of these devices, all aimed at the enemy base.

3) Verify the principles Geordi used to accomplish long-range subspace transport in "Bloodlines". Start assembling a starfleet, and instruct all of the engineers and transporter chiefs in subspace transport technique. I'll want at least 30 starships in my fleet; the more the merrier.

4) Obtain schematics of the Rutian inverter demonstrated in "The High Ground". If possible, install inverters on my starfleet.

So much for preparation. Based on observation of enemy progress and the progress of my preparations, I will choose the best time to attack.

1) The fleet will head toward the enemy base. Operators of the soliton wave generators will open fire on the base in a coordinated attack; the waves will be timed to hit the base simultaneously one hour after the fleet arrives at the target.

2) As they approach, the fleet will use subspace transport to beam anti-matter charges into the enemy starships in a stand-off attack. Since Geordi was able to put Picard on the bridge of a Ferengi ship that was nearly 300 billion kilometers away in "Bloodlines", I think I should be able to accomplish a similar feat. Subspace transports were demonstrated to be capable of penetrating Federation shields in "Bloodlines"; I'll hope they are just as effective against the enemy.

3) Hopefully when my fleet enters the system, there won't be any enemy starships left to resist them. They have an hour to mop up any enemy ships in the area. If subspace transporters have proven ineffective, they will switch to using inverters to interdimensionally transport high explosives into the enemy ships. These also proved to be capable of penetrating shields and easily targeting selected locations inside ships (see "The High Ground").

4) If they have plenty of time and enemy resistance isn't too fierce, the fleet will launch attacks against the base itself. They need to be clear before the soliton waves arrive, though.

5) Soliton waves arrive in the system and all of them hit the base at once. Exact damage is indeterminate, but it should be extensive. The fleet will mop up any surviving enemy soldiers or installations.

That's the kind of planning that I was hoping to see in this thread. Anyone else have ideas?

[Knife]

Wow, does that all happen in a one hour episode?

I don't mean to be mean but that sounds more like a episode outline than a real strategy to deal with a threat on your boarder. Why would they resort to ubber shit instead of a honest to god military strategy to deal with the problem?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Tell me, TOWNMNBS (what does that stand for, anyway, Two Old Women Need My New Bull Shit?)

It stands for "The One Whose Name May Not Be Spoken." AKA, Timothy Jones, one of the most notorious trolls in the history of ASVS.

This guy, however, is just a random troll. TJ would never use TOWNMBS as an ident, nor would he come to this board.

[Ted C]

Wow, does that all happen in a one hour episode?

I don't mean to be mean but that sounds more like a episode outline than a real strategy to deal with a threat on your boarder. Why would they resort to ubber shit instead of a honest to god military strategy to deal with the problem?

Of course that doesn't happen in a one hour episode. That's a far more realistic description of the kind of planning that goes into a major military operation. Do you think the invasion of Afghanistan was planned and executed in an hour?

[Knife]

Wow, does that all happen in a one hour episode?

I don't mean to be mean but that sounds more like a episode outline than a real strategy to deal with a threat on your boarder. Why would they resort to ubber shit instead of a honest to god military strategy to deal with the problem?

Of course that doesn't happen in a one hour episode. That's a far more realistic description of the kind of planning that goes into a major military operation. Do you think the invasion of Afghanistan was planned and executed in an hour?

Using a series of barely tested and highly experimental equipment on a extremely time sensitive schedual is not a realistic solution for a military problem.

Determining the actual threat of the enemies base would be first. Since you said previously that no other enemy assets are preasent around the base, then the actual strategic treat of the base is minimal due to the fact that it would serve no other purpose other than as a forward base. As long as surveilence was maintained, then the threat of a suprise attack would be minimized to a tatical suprise instead of strategic suprise.

If the base was under surveilence, then all sorts of information could be assembled for intelligence purposes as far as what ships came and went to and from the base, the amount of maintence on said ships at the base ect.... All would be important info on the ability of the enemy fleets threat and ability to attack the Feds.

Major orbital facilities do not get built by replicator even in Star Trek, so if there is no other enemy assets within the area, the the enemy supply line is streched pretty far to build, outfit, and maintain a base so far from their teritory. They would in fact be surrounding themselves by threat forces and hamstring themselves from supporting such a major instalation. Even with superior FTL drive of either the Borg or some other galactic power, it not enough to offset such a endeavor of a major base with shipyards so far from their home territory without some sort of infrastructure to support it.

To have a fleet or taskforce of 30 or so ships stationed permenatly at the base without using them as escort of said supply line and or as a patrol weather in part or in whole is not a realistic use of the fleet either. When they are used in such capacity then the in system strength of the fleet is deminished and it opens an avenue of attack for threat forces either by attacking the patrols and escorts or waiting until the main fleet defending the target is depleated enough to assualt directly.

When planning actual military assualts, planners tend to use KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid. Setting up a large complex, and overly time consuming and time dependant attack would not be the first choise of most military planners. Using tried and true strategies would be perferable to one hit wonders, now maybe your right and traditional military strategy would not work in this situation but I believe they would attempt a more straigtforward approach rather than the more complex scheme that you have laid out.

On top of all that, if the base is out there unsupported and by all measure out of reach by its owners in a timely manner and properly watched by the freindly forces then it would be better to leave it in place as an intellegence resource than a military target.

As always, IMHO.

[Ted C]

Using a series of barely tested and highly experimental equipment on a extremely time sensitive schedual is not a realistic solution for a military problem.

Six months is an age in Star Trek time, and it's not like we see them test new techniques extensively before putting them into action anyway (foolish though that may be). We know for a fact that their conventional weapon technologies aren't up to the task, so an innovative solution is required.

Determining the actual threat of the enemies base would be first. Since you said previously that no other enemy assets are preasent around the base, then the actual strategic treat of the base is minimal due to the fact that it would serve no other purpose other than as a forward base. As long as surveilence was maintained, then the threat of a suprise attack would be minimized to a tatical suprise instead of strategic suprise.

The threat the Borg pose is known; they want to assimilate the Federation. I do not see how the presence of a Borg outpost on the edge of Federation space could be considered anything other than preparation for a more aggressive attack than those they have previously launched.

The Empire might be an unknown that you would want to study, since you can presumably negotiate with them.

Either enemy would be in a position to strike anywhere in the Federation on a moments notice if they complete their preparations. The Federation has demonstrated that they consider such postures to be threatening.

If the base was under surveilence, then all sorts of information could be assembled for intelligence purposes as far as what ships came and went to and from the base, the amount of maintence on said ships at the base ect.... All would be important info on the ability of the enemy fleets threat and ability to attack the Feds.

The Federation knows all too well what kind of threat the Borg pose. One Borg cube can easily defeat dozens of Federation starships, and the Federation knows that the Borg intend to assimilate Earth.

Major orbital facilities do not get built by replicator even in Star Trek, so if there is no other enemy assets within the area, the the enemy supply line is streched pretty far to build, outfit, and maintain a base so far from their teritory.

Both of the proposed aggressors have demonstrated the ability to move ships across vast distances without building a string of bases in between. The Empire could literally launch attacks into Federation space from across the galaxy, but they don't have intelligence gathering assets close enough to Federation space to relay target information. Almost the same goes for the Borg, and they've seen (twice) what can happen if they send a cube across the galaxy unsupported.

They would in fact be surrounding themselves by threat forces and hamstring themselves from supporting such a major instalation. Even with superior FTL drive of either the Borg or some other galactic power, it not enough to offset such a endeavor of a major base with shipyards so far from their home territory without some sort of infrastructure to support it.

Why do you think the Borg have 30 cubes in the system to defend their base? Based on past performance, that's a fleet capable of defeating 1200 Federation starships. The Empire might have an even easier time in a conventional battle.

To have a fleet or taskforce of 30 or so ships stationed permenatly at the base without using them as escort of said supply line and or as a patrol weather in part or in whole is not a realistic use of the fleet either.

The supply line is virtually unassailable. Federation starships cannot intercept Imperial ships moving through hyperspace, nor can they intercept Borg ships moving through transwarp conduits. Supply ships would have their own escorts that would be separate from the garrison, anyway.

When they are used in such capacity then the in system strength of the fleet is deminished and it opens an avenue of attack for threat forces either by attacking the patrols and escorts or waiting until the main fleet defending the target is depleated enough to assualt directly.

The garrison fleet never leaves the system.

When planning actual military assualts, planners tend to use KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid. Setting up a large complex, and overly time consuming and time dependant attack would not be the first choise of most military planners.

I don't consider mine a particularly complex plan. What I have included in my attack plan is a lot of redundancy, since I'm not sure how well the enemy will be able to defend against any particular weapon. Borg adaptation has proven to be capable of quickly negating other Federation weapons in the past, and I know next to nothing about the limits of Imperial technology. Consequently, I'm not relying on any one method of attack.

Using tried and true strategies would be perferable to one hit wonders, now maybe your right and traditional military strategy would not work in this situation but I believe they would attempt a more straigtforward approach rather than the more complex scheme that you have laid out.

I don't care what typical Federation strategists would do. The point of this exercise is use *your* knowledge of Federation resources to come up with *your own* plan to defend the Federation.

On top of all that, if the base is out there unsupported and by all measure out of reach by its owners in a timely manner and properly watched by the freindly forces then it would be better to leave it in place as an intellegence resource than a military target.

Yes, the base is relatively unsupported, but it represents a support system for the enemy if they choose to attack the Federation. We know for a fact that assimilating the Federation is a Borg goal, so letting them establish a beach-head on your border is not something I would consider strategically wise. It wouldn't take much intelligence gathering on the Empire to determine that they are an aggressive, expansionist regime, either.

[Darth Wong]

The scenario is hopeless for the Federation. As an aside, I would like to point out that the base need not be there in the first place. Both the Borg and the Empire have an operational range which is large enough to eliminate the need for a forward base anywhere near Federation territory, so why would they build it? Just for kicks?

Anyway, let's accept the scenario despite that serious flaw, and move on:

1. It takes months for a subspace transmission to reach remote Federation colonies, and years for a Federation ship to cross the entirety of its own territory (indeed, the Federation's rear echelon is mostly unused space, much as my own country's land is mostly empty tundra, with most of its population clustered near the border with its neighbour). Therefore, even with six months warning, it is doubtful that the Federation would be able to get even one ship to the base. Game over.
2. In the unlikely event that they happen to have a warship (not just some puny science vessel) within six months of this base, it would probably be the only warship they can muster (worse yet, it would take months for instructions to reach that ship from Starfleet HQ!). Most of their military is clustered around their borders with the Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans, not the remote wastelands of their rear territories. It would be hard enough for 10 or 20 Fed ships to take on an ISD; one would be nothing but skeet-shooting for the Imp gunners.
3. A pre-emptive strike against a vastly superior enemy's forward base is an enormous gamble. In the unlikely event that it succeeds, it may only enrage him (see Pearl Harbour), with potentially terrible consequences for your own people. If it depends almost entirely on untested tricks (as yours does), it will probably not succeed, which is even worse; they may still be enraged, and you will have accomplished nothing.

Regarding the technobabble tricks invoked in your idea:

1. Soliton waves do not contain significant energy; we can observe that no observable energy was released when the soliton wave was stopped, and the first law of thermodynamics dictates that if it did contain vast amounts of energy, there should have been observable effects (particularly on the Enterprise, which was very close to it). Instead, there was nothing. Do not assume that their sensors are infallible; the notion of a self-strengthening wave is idiotic anyway, and I reiterate that direct observation of the wave does not support Geordi's moronic face-value interpretation of his sensor readings. The soliton-wave weapon is a ridiculous idea.
2. Subspace sensors cannot penetrate heavy metals, and they are easily disrupted by various forms of electromagnetic interference. I see no reason to assume that subspace transporters will do any better than subspace sensors (or regular transporters, for that matter).
3. The Federation's subspace telescopes have not demonstrated the range necessary to detect anything at the ranges we're talking about (thousands of light years).

Frankly, this scenario is completely hopeless for the Federation. If it had the good fortune to detect this base in the first place, its best use of resources would be to attempt diplomatic negotiation of a suitable tribute to their new Imperial overlords, preferably under terms which retain some measure of local government autonomy.

If it's a Borg base, surrender is not an option, but they simply don't have the speed or resources to attack it in anything remotely resembling sufficient force before the six month deadline is up and its defenses are fully operational. They would be much better off simply building more ships and weapons and launching long-range sensor buoys toward it so that they can track and quickly respond to any ships approaching from that direction.

[Knife]

Ted, your original post gave a aggressive enemy as an opponent with the Borg and or the Empire as possible choises. If the enemy was the borg, you should have stipulated it. Even so, transwarp is not as much hinderence as one might think. With transwarp as the borg has it, one must have these transwarp hubs with are automaticly a target for freindly forces. Attacking the supply lines would automaticly become attacking the transwarp hubs and in fact would probably become a primary target of the Feds in the first place since the destruction of the hubs would represent a major blow to the enemy in any situation.

If you have 30 or so ships sitting in a system all the time, you might as well have static defences. The whole point in having a ship is that it moves and with that can perform all sorts of functions because it can move. A space ship that can't move is called a space station. If all you do is sit in a static position and wait until your ready to do what ever it is you do, you are doomed. Active patroling around any defensive position is a critical element in any defensive scheme.

The threat forces in the situation do out gun the Feds, but the over all objective is not the destruction of the threat force but the destruction of the forward base. Either botteling up the fleet to alow an attack on the base or spreading out the protecting fleet so as a attack on the base is possible would acomplish the objective as well as anything.

The whole point is that you seemed to want some sort of super duper plot device like solution to the problem when standard military solutions would probably work just as well if at all keeping in mind Mr. Wongs points made above.

[Ted C]

The scenario is hopeless for the Federation. As an aside, I would like to point out that the base need not be there in the first place. Both the Borg and the Empire have an operational range which is large enough to eliminate the need for a forward base anywhere near Federation territory, so why would they build it? Just for kicks?

There's no denying that point. This whole scenario grew out of an email debate going elseswhere.

Anyway, let's accept the scenario despite that serious flaw, and move on:

1. It takes months for a subspace transmission to reach remote Federation colonies, and years for a Federation ship to cross the entirety of its own territory (indeed, the Federation's rear echelon is mostly unused space, much as my own country's land is mostly empty tundra, with most of its population clustered near the border with its neighbour). Therefore, even with six months warning, it is doubtful that the Federation would be able to get even one ship to the base. Game over.
2. In the unlikely event that they happen to have a warship (not just some puny science vessel) within six months of this base, it would probably be the only warship they can muster (worse yet, it would take months for instructions to reach that ship from Starfleet HQ!). Most of their military is clustered around their borders with the Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans, not the remote wastelands of their rear territories. It would be hard enough for 10 or 20 Fed ships to take on an ISD; one would be nothing but skeet-shooting for the Imp gunners.
3. A pre-emptive strike against a vastly superior enemy's forward base is an enormous gamble. In the unlikely event that it succeeds, it may only enrage him (see Pearl Harbour), with potentially terrible consequences for your own people. If it depends almost entirely on untested tricks (as yours does), it will probably not succeed, which is even worse; they may still be enraged, and you will have accomplished nothing.

Well, not every point on the Federation border is that far away. I suppose I should have made it clear what sort of time-to-front the Federation had to deal with, but the intent was that gathering a fleet and getting it to the target within six months would actually be feasible.

Regarding the technobabble tricks invoked in your idea:

1. Soliton waves do not contain significant energy; we can observe that no observable energy was released when the soliton wave was stopped, and the first law of thermodynamics dictates that if it did contain vast amounts of energy, there should have been observable effects (particularly on the Enterprise, which was very close to it). Instead, there was nothing. Do not assume that their sensors are infallible; the notion of a self-strengthening wave is idiotic anyway, and I reiterate that direct observation of the wave does not support Geordi's moronic face-value interpretation of his sensor readings. The soliton-wave weapon is a ridiculous idea.

As noted, I would want to actually test-fire the thing to see if it had real military value before committing resources to further development.

[*]Subspace sensors cannot penetrate heavy metals, and they are easily disrupted by various forms of electromagnetic interference. I see no reason to assume that subspace transporters will do any better than subspace sensors (or regular transporters, for that matter).
[*]The Federation's subspace telescopes have not demonstrated the range necessary to detect anything at the ranges we're talking about (thousands of light years).

I'm not sure we actually know much at all about the range and resolution of those telescopes. All we know is that the Cardassians turned one on Utopia Planetia in "Parallels" and were apparently getting useful information from it.

[/list]
Frankly, this scenario is completely hopeless for the Federation. If it had the good fortune to detect this base in the first place, its best use of resources would be to attempt diplomatic negotiation of a suitable tribute to their new Imperial overlords, preferably under terms which retain some measure of local government autonomy.

If it's a Borg base, surrender is not an option, but they simply don't have the speed or resources to attack it in anything remotely resembling sufficient force before the six month deadline is up and its defenses are fully operational. They would be much better off simply building more ships and weapons and launching long-range sensor buoys toward it so that they can track and quickly respond to any ships approaching from that direction.

Admittedly, negotiation actually would be the better idea if the terms of surrender aren't so bad, as with the Empire. Assuming that it's in striking distance, though, I figured a pre-emptive strike against a Borg base would be a no-brainer, but Starfleets conventional arsenal certainly isn't up to the task.

Nonetheless, I'll declare defeat and conclude that the time would be better spent trying to develop weapons that would get past the enemy's defenses instead of trying to mount an offensive with dubious chances of success.