Wolf 359 Fleet?

[Stormbringer]

That shows that they're still in service unlike someone said in the show (in DS9 IIRC).

Or that they had one in mothballs and hastily recommisioned it to face the threat.

[Crazy_Vasey]

For all we know it could be the Ent-A, we never saw it get destroyed and if they're gonna keep any ship as a museum piece it will be the Enterprise.

[Isolder74]

For all we know it could be the Ent-A, we never saw it get destroyed and if they're gonna keep any ship as a museum piece it will be the Enterprise.

Its possible but even Star Fleet might not dare touch the good old Enterprise-A. But then again considering the rest of the fleet maybe they would.

[Patrick Ogaard]

For all we know it could be the Ent-A, we never saw it get destroyed and if they're gonna keep any ship as a museum piece it will be the Enterprise.

It would actually be plausible for a ship of that age to still be in service in a role that would also explain its being near enough to Earth to take part in the battle. It would even (sort of) fit in with the apparent quote from DS9 to the effect that Constitution-class ships are no longer in service.

Specifically, that would be turning the last Constitution in service into a cadet cruiser used to give some Starfleet cadets their first working time on a starship. It would be analogous to the modern naval practice of using sailing ships in the same role. The Constitution-class ship simply cruises around the systems near Earth, shows up as a bright and shiny antique at major events, and otherwise works as a PR vehicle.

Of course, that particular explanation would imply true desperation on the part of the Federation. Only a desperate Federation would send a training ship out to meet a ship capable of turning the newest and biggest ships of the fleet into duranium sushi.

[Moonshadow]

i dout they would have sent out the Ent-A into a battle they were expecting heavy losses( win or lose). It probably was the Eagle or the Congo. Also some Trek Site said that they still built Refit Connies in limited numbers in the Early 24th century as War Destroyers.

[Stravo]

I've always felt that the large starfleet numbers we see as of Dominion War are a very recent change in Trek. I believe that fleet numbers were always more on the smallish side when you take into account some instances in the shows and movies BEFORE DS9.

TOS:

In the Episode Tomorrow is Yesterday Kirk tells the pilot that there are twelve like her - meaning that there are only twelve consitution class cruisers.

I forgive many instances in TOS because the whole premise of the show is about a ship alone out on the frontier. BUT in Balance of Terror, the Enterprise is the sole ship around for DAYS. This is proven by the fact that it takes hours to get a message to starfleet and back at subspace but Kirk never even attempts to call for help or reinforcements from another ship...why? Because maybe there were no ther ships for days around at the NEUTRAL ZONE.

Numerous instances in the movies where the Enterprise is the only ship around:

-TMP: V'Ger is crossing the neutral zone...NO FEDERATION SHIPS intercept it...NO ships protect Epsilon 9, a station with no weapons (I assume, we see none fire) so what is she supposed to use that close to the Klingon neutral Zone - harsh language? No ships are interception range except the Enterprise. And she is fininshing up a refit, where are those massive shipyards we always here about, at no time do they haul out other half finished ships to help poor Enterprise.

TWOK: The Enterprsie is the only ship in the QUADRANT. If we are to take this literally using TNG lingo, that means the Enterprise is the only ship in either the ALpha Qaudrant or I forget what other quadrant the Feds strattle, but you get my drift. Oh, and the Feds can only spare a single ship to do this multi planet survey for lifeless worlds. I don;t know about you but if they were devloping a way to instantly terraform worlds then I think I MIGHT want to think about assigning a few ships to this mission. Then again if I didn't have that many ships to begin with...

STIII: The Mutura sector is restricted - planet frobidden - yet McCoy can hire a civilian ship to get to the system?? Where is the mighty starfleet with her massive blockade around the system...or did the Feds think that just by declaringa blockade no one would go?? ALSO The Enterprise gets stolen out of Spacedock and the only ship that they can muster to stop her is the Excelsior...she hasn't even started her space trials...what kind of fleet presence is around the capital world?????!!!! The Enterprise is warping her way to Mutura, a stolen vessel, intent on violating the ban and NO SHIPS in pursuit, no ships EVER Show up!!


ST:IV Once again, a giant space probe is on her way and Earth is the obvious target...where are the mighty fleets to protect earth? The Excelsior is all they have in space dock? The probe runs across a sole ship at the border and obviously a few others on the way but NO FLEETS.

ST:V The Planet of peace...the Enterprise is the SOLE ship that can rescue the hostages..a ship that isn't at 100% BTW.

ST:VI Where is the fleet presence over Khitomer. Not a single solitary vessel in orbit. Maybe its neutral territory but HOW did the delgates get there. Did the ships show up beam them away and then leave? What kind of sense does that make. They were discussing peace with teh Klingon empire after a century of near war...WHERE was the security..or perhaps there were not enough ships to spare?

In TNG a few scattered instances:

During the Klingon Civil war the best Picard can gather together is something like 20 starships to help in his blockade. We're talking about a major flashpoint here and they had to drag a ship out of spacedock I believe.

The Wounded: The Cardasian border, a starship goes rogue and the only ship in range is the Enterprise. WHERE are the other ships? People may say - hey its a big fleet but they're strecthed out pretty thin - yeah? Where? I would think you'd have a few near some potential warzones-right?

These are just off the top of my head - we do not see large fleets until the Dominion War, the fact that in my mind they came out of nowhere like that is just sloppy writing. There's plenty of evidence that up until then, Starfleet was rather small.

[Stormbringer]

i dout they would have sent out the Ent-A into a battle they were expecting heavy losses( win or lose). It probably was the Eagle or the Congo. Also some Trek Site said that they still built Refit Connies in limited numbers in the Early 24th century as War Destroyers.

If they were as desperate as they seemed, they damn well ought to send any combat capable ship out. I agree that it probably isn't the Ent-A, we'd have know about it before if it was.

And that information is most likely pure speculationand bullshit. After all the newly rebuilt Ent-A was decommisioned. I doubt they'd have gone to the trouble when there were already extisting ships in mothballs.

[seanrobertson]

It has long been a contention of Trekkies (and, indeed, an assumption by many pro-wars debaters) that the fleet at Wolf 359 only consisted of the ships that Starfleet could pull together in a very small amount of time, and that it represents only a tiny fraction of the total fleet strength of the Federation. (snip)

Yeah.

(snip) However BoBW part II makes it clear that the Federation was scrambling for every ship they could get just before the battle. Riker points out that the Klingons had warships on their way to help, and that SF command had even thought of asking the Romulans for assistance (they spoke of opening contact with them, presumably to ask them for additional ships). This indicates that SF was grouping every possible ship capable of fighting for the defense of Earth and Sector 001.

Correct, but what exactly would "every possible ship capable of fighting"
entail?

Every armed ship within range of the fight itself?
Every armed ship w/in range that could put up any kind of
resistance?
Every armed ship w/in range that had the speed to reach
the conflict?
Every armed ship w/in range that could be spared from its
standard duties; e.g., Neutral Zone and DMZ patrols?

There is no Neutral Zone with the Klingons circa 2366-2367,
but there is no reason to assume Starfleet would be willing
to simply recall all fleets from hostile borders, like that
with the Romulan Empire and Cardassian Union. "FC"
establishes that Starfleet is very aware of the possibility
that the Romulans could "decide to take advantage of the
situation [Borg invasion]."

It's also a bit hasty to assume all of these ships could reach
Wolf or Earth in time. While the DMZ and Neutral Zone aren't
wide, they're rather "long." One could be at the NZ and be
rather close to Earth, as the E-E apparently was in "FC," but
one could just as easily be in the position the E-D was in
"The Defector"; i.e., so far away from Earth that subspace
communications had a time delay of several hours (2.5 to be exact).
Subspace radio is some 52,000c according to "Where No One Has Gone
Before," some 10x or more the maximum attainable velocity
of most Federation (and therefore, Romulan and Klingon) ships.

As the "bulk of the Romulan fleet is deployed along the Neutral
Zone" (emphasis on "along") according to "In the Pale Moonlight,"
we could be looking at some very LONG travel times to reach Earth...
at least a few days.

Moreover, Hansen mentioned that Starfleet had "even thought
of contacting the Romulans," but he didn't say they *had*. Typical
Romulan MO is to stand by and see how things develop. They wouldn't
jump into the Borg-Federation fight unless they felt it was to their
benefit; and during "BOBW," it was better for them to keep their
ships where they were. That had the double benefit of not spreading
themselves even thinner, plus their deployment would keep the Starfleet
ships on the other side of the Zone as a sort of "buffer" between the
Empire and Borg.

The quote is also interesting, however, because it appears to indicate that the Klingon and Romulan fleets would have had time to arrive had they been called for immediately (before Earth was assimilated by the Borg Collective, otherwise the Klingon assistance would be worthless).

Not necessarily. No one thought the Borg would stop at Earth;
the whole nanite plan was dismissed because "in X weeks,
nanites might be all that's left of the Federation." Klingon assistance
needn't have come before the cube reached Earth.

This means that, not only did the Klingons and Romulans presumably have enough time to marshall their forces and prepare them to leave Klingon and Romulan space, respectively, but also warp to Earth in time to offer some assistance during the conflict.

With respects, this is a big leap IMO. We're never even told that the
Romulans were contacted, let alone asked for assistance, convinced
it was to their benefit as well, prepared ships, etc. Hansen said,
"The Klingons are sending warships," but how fast were they busting
it to reach a specific system? And how fast were these Klingon ships?
Until the Vor'cha was widely distributed, most Klingon ships consisted
of overgrown Birds of Prey and D7 variants--not exactly the fastest ships
in the galaxy. (Note: The newer K'Vort battlecruisers' warp speed
was substantially lower than the E-D's in "Yesterday's Enterprise." Therefore, the ancient K't'inga should be even slower.)

And this in turn presents a problem for the supposition that the Wolf 359 fleet was nearly insignificant: If the Romulan and Klingon forces were capable of reaching Earth in time,

Again, my good man, this is a big "if"...and by that, I don't mean
the expedience of Romulan/Klingon forces (see objection to Romulan
involvement above); rather, that they were *heading* toward Earth.
As I also pointed out earlier, it was thought the Borg would assimilate
the entire Federation, not just Earth. We're never told, "The Klingons
are sending warships in defense of Earth." All we know is that the
Klingons were sending ships in defense of their Federation allies
and, given the desperation of the situation, Starfleet *considered*
contacting the Romulans. We're never told if they actually did, or
if the Romulans would dare cooperate.

then any Federation ships patrolling the Romulan and Klingon neutral zones also should have had time to arrive.

See "The Defector" for an idea of the "length" of the Neutral Zone.
Additionally, there is no KNZ at this point. I might've already said
that...can't remember. Head hurts for reasons not related to this
post.

Neither the Klingons nor the Romulans has demonstrated a significant speed advantage when compared with Federation ships, and in fact Federation ships consistently appear to be slightly faster than the largest and most powerful Klingon and Romulan warships.

Yes. "We can outrun the Klingons, but we must protect the Enterprise-C." ("Yesterday's Enterprise") The E-D's crew was very surprised
that a Warbird could catch up to her in "Tin Man"; indeed, the Warbird
did irreversible damage to its warp engines in so doing!

Taken together, these facts appear to indicate that all of the ships that would ordinarily patrol the Neutral Zones were at Wolf 359, or defending Earth and Sector 001 (off-camera). This indicates that all that stands between the Romulans, the Klingons, and conquest of Earth is 40 warships, and in turn presents a problem for rabid-Trekkies who insist on numbers greater than a few thousand warships for each of the big races in the AQ. There is simply no way that a fleet of Romulan warbirds that number into the thousands could possibly be stopped from getting to Earth in a short amount of time. If the Romulans had that many combat capable ships, they should have launched a major offensive against Earth long ago, as it would have been virtually unnoposed (warbirds are better than GCS's, anyway, for combat purposes) by SF, and SF appears so incredibly centralized that the entire UFP may fall apart from such a move, and indeed at the very least their industrial capacity would be shattered. It simply does not make sense for a fleet of a few thousand warships, that considers the Federation its enemy, to withhold a highly lucrative offensive campaign due to the presence of less than 50 Federation warships.

Is there any flaw in this thinking? Can these incredibly small fleet numbers be reconciled with the lack of a Romulan offensive? How is this possible unless we alter our understanding of the UFP and Romulan/Klingon political and military situation? Is there some contradiction that I am not seeing, or is this a significant issue for claims of military fleets numbering into the tens of thousands for each of the major powers in ST? Any ideas on this would be helpful.

There are a few minor flaws in your initial premises that hurt the overall conclusion, but it's really, really good thinking IMHO. I'd take a closer
look at some of your seemingly harmless assumptions before making
that conclusion, but I do think it's at least an intimation that a peacetime
Federation fleet needn't be more than a couple thousand capships or so.

[Patrick Degan]

The reason, I think, why there seem to be so few starships on hand in any given sector, why Starfleet often seems to fall prey to the "only ship in the quadrant" syndrome stems very largely from Gene Roddenberry's model for galactic exploration and conflict: the Horatio Hornblower novels.

Essentially, it appears that the Great Bird envisioned the reality of starship exploration and galaxy travel to be not unlike that of the Age of Sail on Earth (1450-1905). Warships of the various navies were often out of contact with home or the nearest base for months at a time, and contact between rival powers would be very much an isoated incident when it did happen. Single ship-to-ship encounters were the rule rather than the exception, and it would be rare to have whole fleets of dozens or a hundred or two ships assembled in one place for one battle —except in case of all-out war and even then combat was mostly ship-to-ship or between small squadrons of three or four warships on either side.

It made for a sensible limitation in terms of storytelling, since conflict could be intensified on the small scale and thus created a claustrophobic dramatic situation, as well as rendering any given battle as a chess match between rival starship captains. In bugetary terms, it massively saved on F/X.

[Kamakazie Sith]

The reason, I think, why there seem to be so few starships on hand in any given sector, why Starfleet often seems to fall prey to the "only ship in the quadrant" syndrome stems very largely from Gene Roddenberry's model for galactic exploration and conflict: the Horatio Hornblower novels.

Essentially, it appears that the Great Bird envisioned the reality of starship exploration and galaxy travel to be not unlike that of the Age of Sail on Earth (1450-1905). Warships of the various navies were often out of contact with home or the nearest base for months at a time, and contact between rival powers would be very much an isoated incident when it did happen. Single ship-to-ship encounters were the rule rather than the exception, and it would be rare to have whole fleets of dozens or a hundred or two ships assembled in one place for one battle —except in case of all-out war and even then combat was mostly ship-to-ship or between small squadrons of three or four warships on either side.

It made for a sensible limitation in terms of storytelling, since conflict could be intensified on the small scale and thus created a claustrophobic dramatic situation, as well as rendering any given battle as a chess match between rival starship captains. In bugetary terms, it massively saved on F/X.

I agree, but damn does it ever place a dent in this side of the sci-fi debate.

[Master of Ossus]

[snip] what exactly would "every possible ship capable of fighting"
entail?

Every armed ship within range of the fight itself?
Every armed ship w/in range that could put up any kind of
resistance?
Every armed ship w/in range that had the speed to reach
the conflict?
Every armed ship w/in range that could be spared from its
standard duties; e.g., Neutral Zone and DMZ patrols?

There is no Neutral Zone with the Klingons circa 2366-2367,
but there is no reason to assume Starfleet would be willing
to simply recall all fleets from hostile borders, like that
with the Romulan Empire and Cardassian Union. "FC"
establishes that Starfleet is very aware of the possibility
that the Romulans could "decide to take advantage of the
situation [Borg invasion]."

Okay, but are you really saying that the Federation had NO ships protecting the borders of the Klingon Empire, or patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone?

It's also a bit hasty to assume all of these ships could reach
Wolf or Earth in time. While the DMZ and Neutral Zone aren't
wide, they're rather "long." One could be at the NZ and be
rather close to Earth, as the E-E apparently was in "FC," but
one could just as easily be in the position the E-D was in
"The Defector"; i.e., so far away from Earth that subspace
communications had a time delay of several hours (2.5 to be exact).
Subspace radio is some 52,000c according to "Where No One Has Gone
Before," some 10x or more the maximum attainable velocity
of most Federation (and therefore, Romulan and Klingon) ships.

Fine, but are you really saying that there are less than 40 ships protecting Earth from a Romulan attack?

As the "bulk of the Romulan fleet is deployed along the Neutral
Zone" (emphasis on "along") according to "In the Pale Moonlight,"
we could be looking at some very LONG travel times to reach Earth...
at least a few days.

Why? Okay, so clearly the Romulan fleet is so small that it cannot deploy more than 40 or so ships within a few days of Earth. If they could have, they should have attacked Earth long ago. They would have had more than enough firepower to devastate the Federation, in this manner.

Moreover, Hansen mentioned that Starfleet had "even thought
of contacting the Romulans," but he didn't say they *had*. Typical
Romulan MO is to stand by and see how things develop. They wouldn't
jump into the Borg-Federation fight unless they felt it was to their
benefit; and during "BOBW," it was better for them to keep their
ships where they were. That had the double benefit of not spreading
themselves even thinner, plus their deployment would keep the Starfleet
ships on the other side of the Zone as a sort of "buffer" between the
Empire and Borg.

WTF? Here's where your argument begins to fall apart completely. Think about what you are saying. Basically, you say here that the Federation does not want to recall its ships from the Neutral Zone, because then the Romulans might attack (Oh, wait, the Romulans are still waiting to see what's going on. SF must not be worried about an attack, then, because the Romulan MO should prevent them from reacting. Your argument makes no sense.). A threat of Romulan assault would be the only POSSIBLE reason for SF not to withdraw its ships from along the Neutral Zone, so you MUST be saying in one breath that the Romulans want to sit there and see what happens, while saying in the next breath that they want to prevent the Federation from pulling its ships back by threatening an action that they would never do. This is self-contradictory. You're not done, yet, though.

The quote is also interesting, however, because it appears to indicate that the Klingon and Romulan fleets would have had time to arrive had they been called for immediately (before Earth was assimilated by the Borg Collective, otherwise the Klingon assistance would be worthless).

Not necessarily. No one thought the Borg would stop at Earth;
the whole nanite plan was dismissed because "in X weeks,
nanites might be all that's left of the Federation." Klingon assistance
needn't have come before the cube reached Earth.

So.... ONE cube is going to conquer the entire Federation within weeks. Sean, this is blatantly against every piece of common sense. The quote was clearly referring solely to Earth. What's more, the Borg cube appeared to be limited to about Warp 9.99 during BoBW. If travel is as slow as you say in ST, then clearly the Borg would not even be able to VISIT the entire Federation during that time. It wouldn't even come close. Remember that the Cube took hours to go from Wolf 359 to Earth (dropping out of warp for no apparent reason outside of SATURN'S orbit), but you come back and say that the ENTIRE Federation would be dusted in a few weeks. How do you justify your apparently self-contradictory opinions? Remember that you said that SF has lots of ships (and presumably lots of ships like GCS's). This implies that they should have all been able to get to Earth within a week or two at the most, as the Enterprise can go warp 9.9, and you claimed that the Borg would be able to assimilate the entire Federation in a few weeks. Your interpretation of the quote is flawed. Only Earth was in jeopardy, or perhaps Earth and a few other, nearby worlds. Certainly Earth was the only one that was in immediate danger, at the time.

This means that, not only did the Klingons and Romulans presumably have enough time to marshall their forces and prepare them to leave Klingon and Romulan space, respectively, but also warp to Earth in time to offer some assistance during the conflict.

With respects, this is a big leap IMO. We're never even told that the
Romulans were contacted, let alone asked for assistance, convinced
it was to their benefit as well, prepared ships, etc. Hansen said,
"The Klingons are sending warships," but how fast were they busting
it to reach a specific system? And how fast were these Klingon ships?
Until the Vor'cha was widely distributed, most Klingon ships consisted
of overgrown Birds of Prey and D7 variants--not exactly the fastest ships
in the galaxy. (Note: The newer K'Vort battlecruisers' warp speed
was substantially lower than the E-D's in "Yesterday's Enterprise." Therefore, the ancient K't'inga should be even slower.)

I'll deal with the Romulan aspect of this, first. The Romulans were never contacted and convinced to help out, but the fact that SF even thought about doing so indicates two things:

1. SF is getting every combat capable ship to Earth, as fast as they can. Otherwise it would be stupid to even think about asking the Romulans for help while you still have reserves that are not your arch-enemies.
2. It indicates that the Romulan fleet was near enough to, potentially, make a difference during the Battle. Why else would they think about asking the Romulans for help?

Your attack is a strawman. I never said that the Romulan fleet was actually moving to assist SF. I said that they presumably did have time to marshall their forces and move to assist SF, or SF would never have considered asking them for assistance. The same goes for the Klingons, but as we see, the Klingons actually DID have ships in the battle.

Now for the Klingon aspect. Your argument is again self-contradictory. You said that the Klingons ships were slow, with the implication that more ships would have arrived if they had been faster, but we KNOW that Klingon vessels participated in the battle, and that Klingon warriors were assimilated during it from Voyager. Also, if the "slow" Klingon ships were able to get there, why is it that only 40 SF ships were able to get there in time? Are you saying that the Klingons could invade and defeat the Federation at any time by getting 60 or so ships together and attacking Earth? Clearly the Klingons were hustling more than you will admit, as your argument relies on the Klingon inability to arrive at Wolf 359 in time. In fact, they did.

And this in turn presents a problem for the supposition that the Wolf 359 fleet was nearly insignificant: If the Romulan and Klingon forces were capable of reaching Earth in time,

Again, my good man, this is a big "if"...and by that, I don't mean
the expedience of Romulan/Klingon forces (see objection to Romulan
involvement above); rather, that they were *heading* toward Earth.
As I also pointed out earlier, it was thought the Borg would assimilate
the entire Federation, not just Earth. We're never told, "The Klingons
are sending warships in defense of Earth." All we know is that the
Klingons were sending ships in defense of their Federation allies
and, given the desperation of the situation, Starfleet *considered*
contacting the Romulans. We're never told if they actually did, or
if the Romulans would dare cooperate.

Sean, there are no ifs about it. The Klingons were at Wolf 359. We are told in VOY that a Klingon drone was assimilated there. The Klingons MUST have had ships there, for them to be there assimilated. Clearly your premise for this argument is incorrect.

In any case, you once again attack me with your moronic strawman attack. I never claimed that the Romulans ever sent ships to defend Earth. I said that, in order for SF to consider asking them for assistance, they must have been able to make it in time to help out. This is circumstantially supported by the dialogue in the episode, which indicates that the reason the Romulans were not contacted in an official manner with a plea for help is concern that the Romulans would attack them, or use the opportunity to extort other advantages from SF.

then any Federation ships patrolling the Romulan and Klingon neutral zones also should have had time to arrive.

See "The Defector" for an idea of the "length" of the Neutral Zone.
Additionally, there is no KNZ at this point. I might've already said
that...can't remember. Head hurts for reasons not related to this
post.

Okay, sorry. The Klingon border, and the Romulan Neutral Zone, but you are still avoiding the point. The point is that there should have been more ships there, or on the way. Look at it this way. We know that the ships patrolling the Neutral Zone were AT LEAST two hours apart at high warp. We know this because no additional ships moved back to protect Earth while the Borg cube was engaging Sector 001 and its defenses. If some ships from the Neutral Zone were able to get there in time, but others were unable to arrive because of the size of the Neutral Zone, we should have expected to see ships "trickling in." This would mean that SF ships should have been active at Wolf 359, rendezvousing with the destroyed fleet like the E-D tried to do. We saw none of these ships. Further, we saw no additional ships warping in to assist the Enterprise once the Cube had reached Earth. We should have seen this, if the fleet from the Neutral Zone did not have time to arrive, and if the ships in the Neutral Zone were anything less than a few hours apart. This indicates a spectacularly low density of SF ships, even along the Romulan Neutral Zone, where we would expect their fleet density to be at its highest. Further note that, if SF was forced to choose where along the Neutral Zone to concentrate its ships, the area nearest Earth should have received the GREATEST number of ships in terms of ships/volume of space. This indicates that the very low fleet density along the Neutral Zone is actually along the HIGHEST areas of concentrations on that Neutral Zone, which in turn is one of the most highly militarized areas in the UFP.

Neither the Klingons nor the Romulans has demonstrated a significant speed advantage when compared with Federation ships, and in fact Federation ships consistently appear to be slightly faster than the largest and most powerful Klingon and Romulan warships.

Yes. "We can outrun the Klingons, but we must protect the Enterprise-C." ("Yesterday's Enterprise") The E-D's crew was very surprised
that a Warbird could catch up to her in "Tin Man"; indeed, the Warbird
did irreversible damage to its warp engines in so doing!

Okay, this indicates further that any ships along the Neutral Zone and the Klingon borders would have been able to move to Earth in time.

Taken together, these facts appear to indicate that all of the ships that would ordinarily patrol the Neutral Zones were at Wolf 359, or defending Earth and Sector 001 (off-camera). This indicates that all that stands between the Romulans, the Klingons, and conquest of Earth is 40 warships, and in turn presents a problem for rabid-Trekkies who insist on numbers greater than a few thousand warships for each of the big races in the AQ. There is simply no way that a fleet of Romulan warbirds that number into the thousands could possibly be stopped from getting to Earth in a short amount of time. If the Romulans had that many combat capable ships, they should have launched a major offensive against Earth long ago, as it would have been virtually unnoposed (warbirds are better than GCS's, anyway, for combat purposes) by SF, and SF appears so incredibly centralized that the entire UFP may fall apart from such a move, and indeed at the very least their industrial capacity would be shattered. It simply does not make sense for a fleet of a few thousand warships, that considers the Federation its enemy, to withhold a highly lucrative offensive campaign due to the presence of less than 50 Federation warships.

Is there any flaw in this thinking? Can these incredibly small fleet numbers be reconciled with the lack of a Romulan offensive? How is this possible unless we alter our understanding of the UFP and Romulan/Klingon political and military situation? Is there some contradiction that I am not seeing, or is this a significant issue for claims of military fleets numbering into the tens of thousands for each of the major powers in ST? Any ideas on this would be helpful.

There are a few minor flaws in your initial premises that hurt the overall conclusion, but it's really, really good thinking IMHO. I'd take a closer
look at some of your seemingly harmless assumptions before making
that conclusion, but I do think it's at least an intimation that a peacetime
Federation fleet needn't be more than a couple thousand capships or so.

[seanrobertson]

I've got to break this in two parts, if you don't mind...

Okay, but are you really saying that the Federation had NO ships protecting the borders of the Klingon Empire, or patrolling the Romulan Neutral Zone?

Oh, no--I'm counting on the fact that they did, particularly where
the latter is concerned.

What I'm saying is, simply because Starfleet did have ships at
the Neutral Zone doesn't mean they'd be capable of reaching
Sector 001 w/in four days (W359 included). However, those
are ships that would stand between Earth and the RSE in a
hypothetical Romulan invasion.

Fine, but are you really saying that there are less than 40 ships
protecting Earth from a Romulan attack?

No. I'd have to think they're a lot more than that.

Look at it this way. "Legacy" establishes that even one of
the fastest ships in the fleet at the time, the E-D, couldn't
maintain warp nine for very long. (How long is uncertain.
12 hours? Several days?) Some of the ships at Wolf were
probably capable of matching that speed (proto-[/i]Nebula[/i],
an Ambassador), but the average ship was a Miranda
variant or Excelsior, both of which are regarded as a good bit
slower than the E-D. The latter, in particular, should be faster
than the avg. Starfleet vessel, but a member of her class was "too
old and too slow" to even begin to catch the E-D in "1000101"
(or whatever).

Thus, it's probably generous to assume the average ship at
Wolf could achieve and maintain warp 9. Warp 9 translates to
about 830c in "Bloodlines" (from the Canon Database) and we
know it took 4 days for the 40 ships to be assembled at Wolf.
That means the ships could've only come from…

249 million km/sec. = warp 9, or 1 ly every 37,992 seconds
(10.5 hrs.), or ~2.27 ly/day.

…no more than 9.08 light years away.

The Romulans would have to travel a good bit further to reach
Earth. The only known distance from the Neutral Zone to a
Federation starbase, presumably one pretty close to the frontier
(Lya III), is 14.8 ly.

The longer the travel time, the more likely it is that a greater no.
than 40 ships could intercept them. Consequently, from this example
it is hasty to assume the Romulan fleet must be ridiculously small.

Note: I'm not saying YOU'RE suggesting that. Okay? LOL.
But I didn't notice that you ever estimated their likely fleet size...
personally, I could see around 700 Warbirds (off the cuff guess).
That should be enough to defend their borders from all but
the largest Klingon, Federation, or Cardassian incursions. It
requires that the Romulans build more ships per capita than
Starfleet (roughly 40), or at least that they build more BIG ships
annually. However, the Empire probably spends a far greater
percentage of its GNP for military purposes than the Federation
does.

//As the "bulk of the Romulan fleet is deployed along the
Neutral Zone" (emphasis on "along") according to "In the Pale
Moonlight," we could be looking at some very LONG travel times
to reach Earth...at least a few days.//

Why? Okay, so clearly the Romulan fleet is so small that it cannot
deploy more than 40 or so ships within a few days of Earth. If they
could have, they should have attacked Earth long ago. They would
have had more than enough firepower to devastate the Federation,
in this manner.

Or, it’s spread so thin across the Neutral Zone that pulling 40 ships
from patrol duties and sector defense would be difficult. Plus,
as I said, we’re looking at more than 40 ships here. An invasion
fleet sent to Earth would require more ships to get past Starfleet
(see above), and besides, such an approach would leave them
surrounded, cut off from assistance, supplies, etc. The Romulans
are not fond of suicide, even if it might result in a pyrrhic victory
(again, "The Defector" as a good referent for this).

Also, I should reiterate the fact that travel times of days is
actually conservative on my part. It should actually take many
WEEKS for the Romulans to reach Earth with a sizable invasion
force.

Reference: "Shadows and Symbols." The Romulans built a
hospital (and secret munitions dump) on the Bajoran moon
Durna. Senator Cretak had requested such a base because
the RSE's wounded were dying in the weeks it took to reach
Romulus. But it doesn't take weeks for a ship to go from
Bajor to Earth. Defiant, which is limited to warp 9.5 and
ordinarily can't do better than well under warp 9 ("The Sound of
Her Voice"), can make the trip from DS9 to Earth within a few
days at most ("Paradise Lost").

If Earth is only a few days from Bajor, and Bajor is weeks away from Romulus, Romulus is also weeks away from Earth.

WTF? Here's where your argument begins to fall apart completely. Think about what you are saying. Basically, you say here that the Federation does not want to recall its ships from the Neutral Zone, because then the Romulans might attack (Oh, wait, the Romulans are still waiting to see what's going on. SF must not be worried about an attack, then, because the Romulan MO should prevent them from reacting. Your argument makes no sense.). A threat of Romulan assault would be the only POSSIBLE reason for SF not to withdraw its ships from along the Neutral Zone, so you MUST be saying in one breath that the Romulans want to sit there and see what happens, while saying in the next breath that they want to prevent the Federation from pulling its ships back by threatening an action that they would never do. This is self-contradictory. You're not done, yet, though.

I’m very confused. Let’s start over

In short, I’m saying this:

40 ships were assembled to fight the Borg within four days.
That is not indicative of how many ships would stand between
the Romulans and Earth, however, simply because Hansen
said, “Hell, we’ve even thought of opening communications
with the Romulans.” Why? Because the Federation consists of
more worlds than just Earth. Asking for Romulan help does not
mean, “We hope they’ll have ships ready to intercept the cube
before it reaches Earth.” That’s not even implied.

Remember, nonsensical sounding or not, it was expected
that the Borg wouldn’t stop with Earth: “In two weeks, nanites
might be all that’s left of the Federation.” Hyperbole? Yes,
but it’s no more or no less useful than what Hansen tells us
because where Troi exaggerates, Hansen is vague. He never
told us WHY they didn't go ahead and open discussions with
the Romulans, after all. If the Romulans were so close, you'd
think, "What does Starfleet have to lose?"

So.... ONE cube is going to conquer the entire Federation
within weeks. Sean, this is blatantly against every piece of common
sense.

I agree.

The quote was clearly referring solely to Earth.

This seems to be a false dilemma: if we don’t save Earth,
we might as well just throw our hands up on the well-being of
the whole Federation. And though it might very well imply that
Hansen thinks the Romulans would have time to reach Earth, assuming they were willing to do so, how long before it’s “too late”?

By that, I mean do the Romulans have to arrive in time to make a
stand alongside the Federation? Do they have to arrive before the
first human is assimilated on Earth, or before the cube is finished assimilating the planet? As you imply, a cube would have a hard
enough time assimilating one planet, let alone hundreds. Unless
they employ some kind of large-scale assimilation methods we
haven’t seen, a cube would require some time to assimilate the
equivalent of its drone complement. Assuming 100,000 drones,
and 100,000 people assimilated/hr. (probably about right, given
the events of “Dark Frontier”), Earth’s population of billions would
require as much as a year to assimilate. (The rate of assimilation
would increase exponentially as more and more people were
assimilated; e.g., the initial 100,000 directly assimilated would
then be 200,000 drones, which could potentially do twice the work
in the same period of time. Still, it would require many weeks
to do the job, especially since more and more drones are forced
to operate independently from the cube.)

Would it be pointless for the Romulans to arrive at any point
between Week 0 and, say, Week 10 of the assimilation process?
I doubt the Federation would think that’d be pointless.

What's more, the Borg cube appeared to be limited to about Warp 9.99 during BoBW. If travel is as slow as you say in ST, then clearly the Borg would not even be able to VISIT the entire Federation during that time.

True. It’d probably take years to assimilate the entire Federation,
operating dozens of craft no less.

It wouldn't even come close. Remember that the Cube took hours to go from Wolf 359 to Earth (dropping out of warp for no apparent reason outside of SATURN'S orbit), but you come back and say that the ENTIRE Federation would be dusted in a few weeks. How do you justify your apparently self-contradictory opinions?

It’s not my opinion; it’s what Troi figured might happen in 2-3 weeks.
Is it an exaggeration? Sure, undoubtedly, but that’s not what I’m
most concerned with (if at all). I’m concerned with the idea that
any call for help, or even a hypothetical call for help, means that
the responding ships would necessarily intercept the cube before it
did anything on Earth.

That’s the trouble with dialogue: it can be taken literally and
make next to no sense (Troi’s nanite statement), or one can read
into it as the context of the quote would lead you to and still not
hold up to scrutiny.

Remember that you said that SF has lots of ships (and presumably lots of ships like GCS's). This implies that they should have all been able to get to Earth within a week or two at the most, as the Enterprise can go warp 9.9, and you claimed that the Borg would be able to assimilate the entire Federation in a few weeks. Your interpretation of the quote is flawed. Only Earth was in jeopardy, or perhaps Earth and a few other, nearby worlds. Certainly Earth was the only one that was in immediate danger, at the time.

Where did I say all of that? I don’t think they have all that many
ships. Maybe a couple thousand at that point.

And I don’t think the Borg could assimilate the entire Federation
in that time, definitely not…if I gave that impression, I was clearly
wrong. My intended point was that, as you note, Earth and those
“few other, nearby worlds” might be the intended recipient of
Klingon and/or potential Romulan aide. Would Hansen not give
a shit if the Romulans might help in defending *those* planets?

On to part II.

[seanrobertson]

I'll deal with the Romulan aspect of this, first. The Romulans were never contacted and convinced to help out, but the fact that SF even thought about doing so indicates two things:

1. SF is getting every combat capable ship to Earth, as fast as they can. Otherwise it would be stupid to even think about asking the Romulans for help while you still have reserves that are not your arch-enemies.
2. It indicates that the Romulan fleet was near enough to, potentially, make a difference during the Battle. Why else would they think about asking the Romulans for help?

“Hell, we’ve even thought of opening communications with the
Romulans [for help].”

Is it possible they didn’t follow through on that “thought” because
they realized the Romulans couldn’t get to Wolf in time?

And I’m saying that, no, they needn’t make a difference in
that battle—just in preserving the Federation as a whole. I mean,
really…why would the Borg assimilate Earth, then just stop?
Locutus even told us that the Federation was the ultimate target.

Your attack is a strawman. I never said that the Romulan fleet was
actually moving to assist SF. I said that they presumably did have
time to marshall their forces and move to assist SF, or SF would
never have considered asking them for assistance. The same goes
for the Klingons, but as we see, the Klingons actually DID have ships in the battle.

Huh? I don’t see the straw man, because I don’t remember putting
those words in your mouth. Did I say that you claimed the Romulans
were moving to assist? No, I don't think so...I said that it wouldn't
happen for a no. of reasons (unwillingness, too far away), IIRC.

And no, there were no Klingon ships at the battle. We never saw
their wreckage or heard about their participation. Ever.

Now for the Klingon aspect. Your argument is again self-contradictory. You said that the Klingons ships were slow, with the implication that more ships would have arrived if they had been faster, but we KNOW that Klingon vessels participated in the battle, and that Klingon warriors were assimilated during it from Voyager.

No. We’re never told that. This will sound bold, but I defy you to show
me an example of that. See if you can find any blurb about as
much from this website:

http://www.treknews.com/deltablues/

(Look under VGR Reviews. They're fairly complete.)

And yes, I think the Klingon ships are relatively slow, probably
incapable of over 1,000c (which was very fast for TNG at the time…remember the cube’s 7,000c baffled Picard and Hansen:
“…indicating they have a source of power far superior to our own”).

HOW slow is the point--too slow to intervene at Wolf 359.

Also, if the "slow" Klingon ships were able to get there, why is it
that only 40 SF ships were able to get there in time?

Err...because they're in their own territory?

Again, no Klingon ships made it to the battle. All 39 ships lost
have been identified. None were Klingon, nor has any snippet
of dialogue even hinted at that.

Are you saying that the Klingons could invade and defeat the Federation at any time by getting 60 or so ships together and attacking Earth? Clearly the Klingons were hustling more than you will admit, as your argument relies on the Klingon inability to arrive at Wolf 359 in time. In fact, they did.

Your first question *would* constitute a straw man if it was
a statement

And yet again...no, they never did. They didn’t get a single ship
there to fight the cube. Of the 39 ships destroyed, there is no
wreckage of Klingon warships, nor are we ever told of Klingons
assimilated at that battle.

Yes, there are ex-Borg Klingons in Voyager, but you are confusing
them with Starfleet personnel assimilated at Wolf. In “Unity,”
Chakotay falls for a woman who was assimilated at Wolf.
In “Unimatrix Zero,” a former friend of Seven’s said, “I was assimilated
at Wolf 359.” She, too, was human.

There were also lots of Cardassians and other aliens among the
groups of which both women were a part. Were they all assimilated
at W359, too? Certainly not.

Sean, there are no ifs about it. The Klingons were at Wolf 359. We are told in VOY that a Klingon drone was assimilated there. The Klingons MUST have had ships there, for them to be there assimilated. Clearly your premise for this argument is incorrect.

When are we told this? I certainly don’t remember that statement.
The only ex-Borg Klingon we see up-close is NEVER said to come
from Wolf 359. I strongly request that you show me the relevant
dialogue, but I am all but absolutely certain it doesn't exist, and
would prefer to spare you the time looking for it.

In any case, you once again attack me with your moronic strawman attack. I never claimed that the Romulans ever sent ships to defend Earth. I said that, in order for SF to consider asking them for assistance, they must have been able to make it in time to help out. This is circumstantially supported by the dialogue in the episode, which indicates that the reason the Romulans were not contacted in an official manner with a plea for help is concern that the Romulans would attack them, or use the opportunity to extort other advantages from SF.

Moronic? Slow down there Bessie. I’m not the one claiming there were Klingons present at Wolf, or inventing dialogue from thin air to support
that contention.

I also flatly don’t see this straw manning you’re talking about. Not
to toot my own horn, but unlike most participants in these forums,
I knew what a straw man fallacy was for years before Michael started
this site. I take such accusations seriously. I don't see where I
claimed, "Ossus is claiming the Romulans were coming to or
at Wolf 359!" I said I:

...don't mean the expedience of Romulan/Klingon forces (see
objection to Romulan involvement above); rather, that they were *heading* toward Earth.


Could you mean that? "They" didn't refer to fleets under way but
those that might be *potentially* undertaken.

Anyway, my objection was:


Moreover, Hansen mentioned that Starfleet had "even thought
of contacting the Romulans," but he didn't say they *had*.
Typical Romulan MO is to stand by and see how things develop.
They wouldn't jump into the Borg-Federation fight unless they felt
it was to their benefit.

Meaning that they'd take even longer to respond than if they
were eager to help, lengthening that travel time from the NZ
to Earth even more.

I also said:


As I also pointed out earlier, it was thought the Borg would assimilate
the entire Federation, not just Earth. We're never told, "The Klingons
are sending warships in defense of Earth." All we know is that the
Klingons were sending ships in defense of their Federation allies
and, given the desperation of the situation, Starfleet *considered*
contacting the Romulans. We're never told if they actually did, or
if the Romulans would dare cooperate.


But I don't see anything there that you might confuse as a straw
man.

Let me be perfectly clear.

The Romulans did not send ships to Wolf, nor is Hansen’s
statement in ANY way indicative of them being able TO do so within
the time alotted. You are reading too much into it.

Okay, sorry. The Klingon border, and the Romulan Neutral Zone, but you are still avoiding the point. The point is that there should have been more ships there, or on the way. Look at it this way. We know that the ships patrolling the Neutral Zone were AT LEAST two hours apart at high warp. We know this because no additional ships moved back to protect Earth while the Borg cube was engaging Sector 001 and its defenses. If some ships from the Neutral Zone were able to get there in time, but others were unable to arrive because of the size of the Neutral Zone, we should have expected to see ships "trickling in."

Err…when? As I recall, the E-D didn’t just sit around at Wolf waiting for these other ships. Evidently, however, other ships did eventually
“trickle in” to pick up survivors, like those in the Saratoga’s
life pods (“The Emissary”). The E-D might not have initially
detected them, but their sensors aren’t perfect, and they were most concerned with chasing the cube, anyway.

This would mean that SF ships should have been active at Wolf 359, rendezvousing with the destroyed fleet like the E-D tried to do. We saw none of these ships. Further, we saw no additional ships warping in to assist the Enterprise once the Cube had reached Earth. We should have seen this, if the fleet from the Neutral Zone did not have time to arrive, and if the ships in the Neutral Zone were anything less than a few hours apart.

Why are the ships only a few hours apart? That wasn’t the case in “The Defector.”

As for ships active at Wolf 359, evidently some were, but after the E-D arrived on the scene.

And for ships warping to help the Enterprise at Earth, they’d face the
same limitation the cube and E-D herself did: you don’t warp inside a
solar system. At least, that’s what they say in TMP and DS9’s
“By Inferno’s Light”:



KIRA
And Bajor...
(coming to a decision)
We have to use the tractor beams.

DAX
We're too far.

KIRA
Wanna bet? Take us to warp.

DAX
(concerned)
Inside a solar system?

KIRA
If we don't, there won't be a
solar system left.

Incidentally, Defiant was lucky to not run into the Bajor star's
photosphere with this maneuver.

Okay, this indicates further that any ships along the Neutral Zone and the Klingon borders would have been able to move to Earth in time.

Err…how? I repeat: Lya III, 52,000c. The Neutral Zone is long.
With ships patrolling its length, there are actually very few that
could get back to Sector 001 in time.

There is simply no way that a fleet of Romulan warbirds that number into the thousands could possibly be stopped from getting to Earth in a short amount of time.

Thousands of Warbirds does sound extreme to me, but why in
the hell would they launch such a delusional operation? To send
thousands of ships to attack Earth would leave their territory equally vulnerable. They’d effectively trade Earth for Romulus: if Starfleet
didn’t counterattack, you can bet the Klingons would.

If the Romulans had that many combat capable ships, they should have launched a major offensive against Earth long ago, as it would have been virtually unnoposed (warbirds are better than GCS's, anyway, for combat purposes) by SF, and SF appears so incredibly centralized that the entire UFP may fall apart from such a move, and indeed at the very least their industrial capacity would be shattered.

Not necessarily. They maintained ship yards that were within
easy striking distance of the Dominion; i.e., “Their shipyards are
operating at full capacity, but you’re rebuilding yours.” And Earth
wasn’t fair game until the Breen joined the war. Therefore, they
have industry throughout the Federation.

It’s also a poor trade-off for reasons already noted.

It simply does not make sense for a fleet of a few thousand warships, that considers the Federation its enemy, to withhold a highly lucrative offensive campaign due to the presence of less than 50 Federation warships.

It’d be more than 50 ships, for one thing, unless you’d care to
show me better estimates for warp speeds than those I’ve already
provided (most of which were lifted from the Canon Database).
It’s also hardly going to be a lucrative operation if the combined
forces of Starfleet and the Klingons

A—surround you and cut off your supply lines;
and/or
B—go and blast your relatively undefended homeworld, which
we KNOW the Klingons have attacked in the past (Kor’s “attack on
Romulus,” “Sword of Kahless”) and can still reach relatively easily
(“Unification”).

Is there any flaw in this thinking? Can these incredibly small fleet numbers be reconciled with the lack of a Romulan offensive? How is this possible unless we alter our understanding of the UFP and Romulan/Klingon political and military situation? Is there some contradiction that I am not seeing, or is this a significant issue for claims of military fleets numbering into the tens of thousands for each of the major powers in ST? Any ideas on this would be helpful.

I don’t think tens of thousands of ships is at all likely. MAYBE,
all three organizations combined have something similar to that
many during extreme wartime production. However, contrary to
some Trekkies’ claims, it isn’t necessary for the FKR Alliance—and therefore, each member itself—to have upwards of 30,000 ships.

That belief is based in “Tacking Into the Wind,” wherein 1,500
Klingon ships are said to be “outnumbered 20 to 1” a few times.
That’s fine…but Christ Almighty, that includes Breen ships—flying
JUNK, which Defiant could blow away with total ease—Jem’Hadar attack ships, which aren’t really capships—AND the large fleet of
smallish Cardassian Hideki-type craft.

When a single Klingon Bird of Prey can whip 3 Jem’Hadar attack
ships (“Sons and Daughters” IIRC), and one can last in combat with
10 for a short period (Kor’s last stand), to say that the Alliance
had to match Dominion ships one for one to win is truly absurd.
I don't know who is advancing that train of thought, but they're
overlooking the fact that the Alliance didn't actually win until the
Cardassians revolted, anyway.

However, yes, there are things you’re overlooking. For one,
you’re reading too much into what Hansen said. Second, I think
you’re oversimplifying the consequences of a massive Romulan invasion/attack on Earth; third, related thereto, don’t forget the
Federation-Klingon mutual defense pact, described numerous times
but never better than in “Redemption,” in which it is repeatedly
stated that the alliance helped keep the Romulans in check.

Is it possible that the Romulans could send a large fleet of Warbirds,
perhaps several hundred, to Earth, hit it hard, and cripple the
Federation's political infrastructure? Maybe, yes. But in so doing,
they'd leave their own lines spread pretty damn thin. The combined
might of the Federation and Klingon Empires would make them regret
such a foolish move with a counterattack, so in the end, everybody
except the Klingons loses, big.

[seanrobertson]

Son of a bitch. That's two perfectly good posts ruined
by that stupid shit replacing all of the commas and
apostrophes (and God knows what else). My fault for
copying and pasting it from MS Word I guess.

%&$?!*@# sucker.

[Master of Ossus]

Okay, Sean, you've officially confused me. First you claim that, in a few weeks, all that's left of the Federation is going to be nanites if the Borg are not stopped. Now you come back and say that the Borg would take as long as a few years to assimilate Earth (actually, by your methods, it should be about a month, assuming that the Borg have no restrictions on where they can and cannot transport drones to and begin assimilation), but you insist that the reason they didn't use the nanites was because it would take a few weeks. Now you come back and say that the reason they thought of contacting the Romulans was to come in and save Earth in a week (let's say). Why wouldn't they just agree to the nanite plan, if, as you claim, the Romulans were going to take weeks to get there? Clearly the Romulan fleet was expected within a matter of a few days, at the most, had they asked for assistance. Otherwise the nanite plan should have been agreed to, if the goal was merely to prevent the assimilation of Earth. Again, the Borg objective was only the assimilation of Earth. If Earth were to be assimilated/destroyed, then the Federation would cease to function very quickly, and would be forced to begin anew by creating new industrial bases and a new seat of government--something it almost certainly cannot do within a reasonable period of time. Thus, the conclusion is that the Federation/Romulan/Klingon fleets were very small, and that the loss of around 40 ships at Wolf 359 represented a substantial loss of military materiel for the UFP.

[Master of Ossus]

Sean, your entire argument is based around the false, and at this point moronic insistence that no Klingon ships were involved at Wolf 359. We specifically heard in Voyager that there WERE Klingons at Wolf 359. We SAW a Klingon drone, and we heard Seven of Nine state that it was a drone assimilated at Wolf 359. What part of this do you not understand? Even fellow Trekkie, Alyeska, specifically addressed this DURING THIS THREAD! READ THE DAMN THREAD BEFORE YOU POST, PLEASE!

Let me get this straight.

First a Borg Cube wipes out 39 of 40 ships of a Federation fleet at Wolf 358.

Then, the Cube continues to Earth, where it is destroyed by the Enterprise.

Several years later, in the Delta Quadrant, the USS Voyager encounters members of Starfleet captured in the Battle of Wolf 358.

Am I the only person who sees a problem with this timeline

Nope. We also saw evidence of a Cube having fought Klingon ships. Its clear the the Borg ship met with another Borg ship before heading towards Earth. We already know the Borg had been prowling around the Romulan Federation neutral zone.

[Vertigo1]

TWOK: The Enterprsie is the only ship in the QUADRANT. If we are to take this literally using TNG lingo, that means the Enterprise is the only ship in either the ALpha Qaudrant or I forget what other quadrant the Feds strattle, but you get my drift.

It should be noted that back then, Quadrants is not a 1/4 chunk of the galaxy. This was revised in ST6, which is the first recorded use of the 4 quadrant system. Before that, quadrants were simply a larger (or smaller) measurement of parsecs.

[seanrobertson]

Sean, your entire argument is based around the false, and at this point moronic insistence that no Klingon ships were involved at Wolf 359.

Let me tell you something.

At no point have I been mudslinging. I would appreciate if you
could refrain from doing so.

We specifically heard in Voyager that there WERE Klingons at Wolf 359.

No, we didn't "hear" that.

This is getting very tiresome. For EVERY contention I make,
I cite the episode and relevant dialogue. For you to simply
counter, "Well, we heard in VGR" is not sufficient.

We SAW a Klingon drone, and we heard Seven of Nine state that it was a drone assimilated at Wolf 359.

Episode and dialogue, please. Further explain why of the 39 ships,
the wreckage from which I understand has been identified at
dedicated sites like Ex Astris Scientia, NO Klingon ships are
discernable.

Further explain why this red herring about Klingons has anything
to do with the no. of Starfleet ships that would stand between
Earth and a Romulan invasion.

What part of this do you not understand? Even fellow Trekkie,

I am NOT a Trekkie in the manner you imply. Such a label is
irrelevant.

Alyeska, specifically addressed this DURING THIS THREAD! READ THE DAMN THREAD BEFORE YOU POST, PLEASE!

I did read that. According to my sources, it is wrong.

Besides, with respects to Alyeska, who seems like a nice
man, this is an illicit appeal to authority. I see no episodic dialogue.
Only hearsay.

That is unacceptable, and if you're going to call me a moron
and pull moves like that, well...why don't we just cut through
the bullshit, here?

Your entire premise of a small Romulan fleet is based on
an interpretation of ONE piece of dialogue. That is the point
of this thread, is it not? You have ignored my efforts to demonstrate
that such could NOT have been what Hansen meant, as messy
as those posts were (and for that, I apologize; I'll gladly repost them
in readable format if one of the moderators would like to delete
the originals shortly thereafter). Why?

Distance, distance, distance. Instead, we're focusing on
the red herring of nanites and God knows what else.

Calm down a bit and remember I ain't your enemy. I am NOT
a Trekkie, either, BUT I will not stand for wild generalizations
made of any show, nor will I simply lie down and accept someone's
memory of VGR dialogue when I have *already given you the
damn resources to investigate and support your contention.*

[Master of Ossus]

Shut the fuck up, Sean. You continuously disregard the point. The episode was "Unity." There was a Borg drone there, that was a Klingon in his past life. Seven of Nine, upon seeing him walk by, explains that he was a Borg drone assimilated at Wolf 359. Look at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/9299/unity.html for the following:

Klingons - There are some Klingons among the people that were abducted by the Borg; (Unity)

In researching the episode in an effort to find the script, I also discovered that Romulans WERE involved in the batte. According to:

http://members.aol.com/Ensdelk/unity.html

Chakotay plays a bit of possum and staggers outside to find that Riley and her friends, like Orum the Friendly Romulan and medic, are actually members of the 12-step Borg Recovery Program. They were captured at Wolf 359 and various other engagements, became part of the collective, watched as the cube was deactivated by an energy discharge (hats off to Mother Nature after all), and then found themselves once again individuals.

According to:

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6952/unityrev.htm

they are all former Borg, (humans, Romulans, Klingons...) assimilated at Wolf 359.

This site was nice because it actually had an image of a Klingon BoP at Wolf 359 (The VOY staff lifted the image from DS9's "Way of the Warrior, then added the Cube in the background). It also has pictures of some of the Borg drones, but you can't really tell what their races are from the pictures (even though one of the ones pictured was a Romulan, according to the dialogue).

http://www.ayala.fslife.co.uk/ep59b.htm

I was, unfortunately, unable to find an online script for the episode, but the video image of the battle is irrefutable evidence that the Klingons were at Wolf 359. In addition, the Klingon who was assimilated, and the Romulan are clearly evidence that not only were the Romulans contacted and agreed to help (in DIRECT contradiction of what you've been saying they would do), but that they actually had time to arrive (also in direct contradiction of your previous claims). I am tired of going over this with you because you simply believe what you want to believe, regardless of what the facts are. Clearly the Klingons and Romulans engaged the Borg, with the Federation fleet at Wolf 359. Your denial of this does not change the facts.

This is significant because it indicates that many UFP ships from the borders with both the Romulan and Klingon Empires should have had plenty of time to arrive, and that Romulan and Klingon ships were within striking distance of an Earth protected by only a small number of mostly antiquated and smaller warships. In a few days, the UFP was only able to gather 40 of their own ships, but they were also capable of gathering some of their ENEMIES' ships from nearby to assist them with the battle. This should conclusively demonstrate that the UFP maintains VERY few combat ships along their borders with their traditional enemies, even though these borders are well within striking distance of Earth, and even though the Romulans and Klingons seem to be more than capable of gathering enough ships together to make Earth's defenses seem ludicrously weak (which they were, anyway), by blasting through their defenses, if Federation cultists are to be believed.

Sean, further, you are CLEARLY a rabid Trekkie from this debate, and from others like it, that I have had with you. You ignore evidence until you are beaten over the head with it. You disregard facts in favor of your silly fantasies that hold that the UFP and its allies would not lose as badly to the Empire as the rest of us are saying. That is my definition of a Rabid Trekkie.

BoBW clearly demonstrates a spectacularly low ship count at the time of the first Borg incursion for all of the major AQ players that are generally considered to be among the more powerful groups in ST.

Your entire premise of a small Romulan fleet is based on
an interpretation of ONE piece of dialogue. That is the point
of this thread, is it not? You have ignored my efforts to demonstrate
that such could NOT have been what Hansen meant, as messy
as those posts were (and for that, I apologize; I'll gladly repost them
in readable format if one of the moderators would like to delete
the originals shortly thereafter). Why?

Distance, distance, distance. Instead, we're focusing on
the red herring of nanites and God knows what else.

My premise for a small Romulan fleet is based on the correspondingly low Federation estimates from BoBW, and the fact that the Romulans did not, in fact, attack the Federation. It is further based on the presence of Romulan drones in "Unity." I have not ignored your attempts to prove anything, in direct contradiction of what you would have people believe, in fact, I posted NUMEROUS TIMES why your efforts were flawed. I have, further, demonstrated why your premise (that the Romulan and Klingon Empires did not have time to get to Wolf 359) was incorrect. I don't need you to post again, because I already understood your posts, but you appear to be completely ignoring my posts.

You brought up the nanites, saying that they demonstrated a potential reason why the Romulans were not asked to help. I have now shown that the Romulans were not only asked, but that they DID help. Further, even if the Romulans did not help, your own figures on the estimated time to assimilate Earth demonstrated that the nanite solution should have been imposed, but that UFP officers would be understandably hesitant about using it unless absolutely necessary because they would be forfeiting millions of people to the Borg (and then to death).

Cut the bullshit and conceed the debate.

[seanrobertson]

Borgified Klingons are mentioned directly, seen, or
hinted at in these episodes:

"Barge of the Dead"

CHAKOTAY: And it's old. That's about all we know.
Looks like the Klingons beat Starfleet to the Delta
Quadrant by a few hundred years. You may be holding the
most important archaeological find in Klingon history.

TORRES: Remind me to plant a flag on behalf of the Empire.
You know, the simplest explanation is that the Borg
assimilated a Bird of Prey somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant
and they blew it out an airlock on their way home.


It seems odd that a Bird of Prey was simply picked up
"somewhere in the Alpha Quadrant" if there were BoPs
present at Wolf 359.

"Unimatrix Zero"

KOROK: I told you not to bring her here!

AXUM: We can't do this by ourselves.

KOROK: It's too great a risk!

AXUM: We don't have a choice.

KOROK: You do not speak for all of us!

AXUM: What would you rather do? Have us wait until
we're all discovered? You disappoint me. Where's your
warrior spirit?

KOROK: PetaQ! I'll rip your heart out.

AXUM: Go ahead. Kill me. I'll be back when I begin my
next regeneration cycle. You can't stop me, Korok.

KOROK: If you come here again...you'll be putting your Starship
at risk--and all of us as well.

LAURA: Shouldn't you be off sharpening your teeth? (Korok growls,
then stalks off.)


Later:


KOROK: Starship Voyager. I am General Korok. This vessel
is now under my command. We've come to join you in battle.


This ex-Borg Klingon never claims he fought at Wolf 359,
nor does anyone else point him out and say, "Ah,
Korok. He was assimilated at W359."

HOWEVER:

Shortly after "Laura" tells Korok to go fuck himself with a tooth
sharpener, we are told...

("Unimatrix Zero")

SEVEN: I know you! Your name is Laura. You're human.

LAURA: I was assimilated at Wolf Three Five Nine. It's good to
see you again. But you look out of place. Your cybernetic
implants...


I believe someone simply got confused and didn't remember
the dialogue perfectly. Thankfully I am more thorough.

We also have the example of "Unity," the only other
instance during which the words "Wolf Three Five Nine"
are EVER spoken in VGR. Rather than have me do any
more digging to support someone else's claim, I suggest
you visit http://www.treknews.com/deltablues/unity.html

In short, we are told that a woman named Frazier was assimilated
from the starship Roosevelt. There ARE Klingons, Romulans,
Cardassians, and "a few dozen other species, known and unknown"
on the planet with Frazier, but at no point where they stated to
have been assimilated at Wolf 359. (That system would've seen a
lot of traffic that day, huh?)

I repeat: only Frazier is said to have been assimilated from the
Wolf system.

Interestingly enough, we also see a Klingon and a Cardassian
drone in "First Contact."

[seanrobertson]

Shut the fuck up, Sean.

You are way, WAY out of line here. I haven't said ugly
word one to you. I'm getting really fucking tempted to about
now.

[Master of Ossus]

Shut the fuck up, Sean.

You are way, WAY out of line here. I haven't said ugly
word one to you. I'm getting really fucking tempted to about
now.

Oh, really?

That is unacceptable, and if you're going to call me a moron
and pull moves like that, well...why don't we just cut through
the bullshit, here?

Your entire premise of a small Romulan fleet is based on
an interpretation of ONE piece of dialogue. That is the point
of this thread, is it not? You have ignored my efforts to demonstrate
that such could NOT have been what Hansen meant, as messy
as those posts were (and for that, I apologize; I'll gladly repost them
in readable format if one of the moderators would like to delete
the originals shortly thereafter). Why?

Clearly the words "bullshit" and the statements about ignoring your points (that I just spent several posts disecting) do not qualify as insults. We may as well add lying to the list of things you have done on this thread, shall we?

[seanrobertson]

You continuously disregard the point. The episode was "Unity." There was a Borg drone there, that was a Klingon in his past life. Seven of Nine, upon seeing him walk by, explains that he was a Borg drone assimilated at Wolf 359. Look at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/9299/unity.html for the following:

Note to Ossus:

I have no aversion to bad language. One of my former professors'
favorite words was bullshit. She often said "fuck" was perhaps the
most underrated word in the language itself.

However, I see no constructive end in telling me to shut the fuck
up. As I said in the previous post, it's out of line. I've been more
polite than that to you.

But that's beside the point.

Frankly, I'm disappointed with the "evidence" you have presented.
Most of them are fan sites with interpretations of
dialogue which, as you should know, as a rather poor source of
information from the get-go. Ironic that we should argue an
interpretation of Hansen's statement, the entire basis for your claim that the Romulan fleet is "small" (small relative to...WHAT?), and that you should turn to yet even more middleman sources.

Let's look at them.

Klingons - There are some Klingons among the people that were abducted by the Borg; (Unity)

Yes. Of course, only a simpleton would construct a false dilemma
that requires "all Klingons must be assimilated at Wolf 359."
There WERE other Borg incursions, after all. Or maybe I just
imagined "The Neutral Zone" and "I, Borg." Yeah. I imagined
it.

There were also Cardassians present on the Unity planet, plus,
and I QUOTE (which you refuse to do, in spite of my giving you
the means), a "dozen other species, known and unknown."
Were they all assimilated at Wolf, too?

In researching the episode in an effort to find the script,

Why didn't you try the site I suggested?

I also discovered that Romulans WERE involved in the batte. According to:

http://members.aol.com/Ensdelk/unity.html

Chakotay plays a bit of possum and staggers outside to find that Riley and her friends, like Orum the Friendly Romulan and medic, are actually members of the 12-step Borg Recovery Program. They were captured at Wolf 359 and various other engagements, became part of the collective, watched as the cube was deactivated by an energy discharge (hats off to Mother Nature after all), and then found themselves once again individuals.

Christ Almighty, Ossus. Did you even READ what you quoted? "They
were captured at Wolf 359 AND VARIOUS OTHER ENGAGEMENTS."

You DID know the Borg assimilated Romulans over a year before
the E-D was thrown into J-25, didn't you?

To simply conclude, "That Romulan was at Wolf 359" is flat-out
retarded. It's not even a frickin' TRANSCRIPT of the episode!

According to:

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6952/unityrev.htm

they are all former Borg, (humans, Romulans, Klingons...) assimilated at Wolf 359.

Who gives a shit? That's NEVER said in the episode itself.
What about the Cardassians and other dozen species?
LEAP IN LOGIC, ANYONE?

And yet again, you disgrace yourself with a REVIEW of the
episode, adding yet ANOTHER DEGREE of interpretation on top
of your own.

Get the transcript or watch the motherfucking episode. Only ONE
person is said to have been assimilated at the Wolf system.

ONE.

Got that?

This site was nice because it actually had an image of a Klingon BoP at Wolf 359 (The VOY staff lifted the image from DS9's "Way of the Warrior, then added the Cube in the background).

Wrong again. Classic non sequitur.

I'm curious...because a BoP faces a cube, why does it follow that
the Bird was in the Wolf system? Were Starfleet ships also in the
background?

The answer is a flat NO.

That sequence also showed Bajor and, if you wouldn't rely so
heavily on middleman sources, you'd see that it showed Federation
photon torpedos smashing into a D7-style battlecruiser, a little
girl running in a green field yelling, "Grandpa!" and quite a bit more.

Were they all at Wolf 359 too?

It also has pictures of some of the Borg drones, but you can't really tell what their races are from the pictures (even though one of the ones pictured was a Romulan, according to the dialogue).

Had you seen the episode or read the transcript, you'd know that, yes,
there was a Romulan among those ex-drones. Klingons and Cardassians,
plus lots of others too, to be a broken record. Were they ever said
to be assimilated at Wolf? No.

http://www.ayala.fslife.co.uk/ep59b.htm

I was, unfortunately, unable to find an online script for the episode, but the video image of the battle is irrefutable evidence that the Klingons were at Wolf 359.

Total and utter bullshit. That cube could've been anywhere.

And I repeat: this is STILL a red herring from the original point of
this thread (which you appear to have forgotten). Romulans,
remember? NOT Klingons. I noticed that you were silent when
I mentioned that earlier...(shrugs).

In addition, the Klingon who was assimilated, and the Romulan are clearly evidence that not only were the Romulans contacted and agreed to help (in DIRECT contradiction of what you've been saying they would do),

BZZZT.

but that they actually had time to arrive (also in direct contradiction of your previous claims). I am tired of going over this with you because you simply believe what you want to believe, regardless of what the facts are.

Sorta like the way you ignore all of the nos. I've presented and
try to claim all this on:

1--a poorly interpreted piece of dialogue;
2--a motley crew of second-hand websites, themselves NOT
a direct representation of the show, from which you draw self-favoring
conclusions.

SHOW me how I "believe what I want to believe." Saying it doesn't
make it so. (Yes, that *might* require that you go back and
look at some of the figures I presented which, thus far, you've
dismissed out of hand.)

Clearly the Klingons and Romulans engaged the Borg, with the Federation fleet at Wolf 359. Your denial of this does not change the facts.

No. Denial never does.

But your "facts" are wrong. Had you simply looked at the damn
transcript, you would know this.

This is significant because it indicates that many UFP ships from the borders with both the Romulan and Klingon Empires should have had plenty of time to arrive, and that Romulan and Klingon ships were within striking distance of an Earth protected by only a small number of mostly antiquated and smaller warships. In a few days, the UFP was only able to gather 40 of their own ships, but they were also capable of gathering some of their ENEMIES' ships from nearby to assist them with the battle.

We know why it's significant, but since it didn't happen, it's a moot
point.

This should conclusively demonstrate that the UFP maintains VERY few combat ships along their borders with their traditional enemies, even though these borders are well within striking distance of Earth, and even though the Romulans and Klingons seem to be more than capable of gathering enough ships together to make Earth's defenses seem ludicrously weak (which they were, anyway), by blasting through their defenses, if Federation cultists are to be believed.

Dream on. Parts of this I agree with, but you're approaching delusion
with this Klingon-Romulan shit.

Sean, further, you are CLEARLY a rabid Trekkie from this debate, and from others like it, that I have had with you. You ignore evidence until you are beaten over the head with it.

You are one dumb son of a bitch if you believe this. (I notice you have
no specifics, just more of your vaguerisms.) Who cares what YOU think?

I don't know HOW many times I've talked about the Empire whipping
the entire Trek galaxy successfully and with relative ease.

You disregard facts in favor of your silly fantasies

Name ONE. I'm not the one prancing around pretending that ONE
PIECE OF DIALOGUE is proof that the Neutral Zone is X distance
from Earth!

that hold that the UFP and its allies would not lose as badly to the Empire as the rest of us are saying. That is my definition of a Rabid Trekkie.

"The rest of us" = ad populum.

Do I claim that I find it hard to believe one TIE could whip a GCS?

Yes.

Do I claim I find it hard to believe a squadron of TIEs could whip
a Borg cube?

Yes.

Do I even claim that I find it hard to believe the Millenium Falcon
has gigaton-ranged laser batteries?

Yes.

Therefore, you conclude, I must be a Rabid Trekkie. LOL...get real,
man.

BoBW clearly demonstrates a spectacularly low ship count at the time of the first Borg incursion for all of the major AQ players that are generally considered to be among the more powerful groups in ST.

No, it doesn't, because you still refuse to acknowledge SOOO much
I've pointed out. The ONLY thing you could go on about was nanites.
Address all the rest, and we'll talk; I wanted to reformat it for you,
but given your really nasty, disrespectful attitude, I don't see the
point in extending that offer anymore. (If you calm down and
apologize, however, I'll gladly resend it. How many times do I
have to tell you--FUCKING SINCERELY, HARDHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!--
that I don't intend to be your enemy?)

If, however, you're just looking for yes-men, you are in the
wrong place, buck-o.

My premise for a small Romulan fleet is based on the correspondingly low Federation estimates from BoBW, and the fact that the Romulans did not, in fact, attack the Federation.

Why should they? Are you blind? The Federation and
Klingons had a mutual defense treaty. The Romulans
attack the Feds means the Klingons attack the Romulans.
Your view of war is far too one-dimensional.

It is further based on the presence of Romulan drones in "Unity." I have not ignored your attempts to prove anything, in direct contradiction of what you would have people believe, in fact, I posted NUMEROUS TIMES why your efforts were flawed.

Invisible ink ain't comin' across on this end chief.

I have, further, demonstrated why your premise (that the Romulan and Klingon Empires did not have time to get to Wolf 359) was incorrect. I don't need you to post again, because I already understood your posts, but you appear to be completely ignoring my posts.

LOL. I'm quoting you WORD FOR WORD, and you hardly EVER quote
me, and I'm the one ignoring you...RIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT.

You brought up the nanites, saying that they demonstrated a potential reason why the Romulans were not asked to help.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

Straw Man.

Point out the text...if you're willing.

(Let me guess. It's "too long and meandering" or somesuch.)

I have now shown that the Romulans were not only asked, but that they DID help.

Only in your imagination.

Further, even if the Romulans did not help, your own figures on the estimated time to assimilate Earth demonstrated that the nanite solution should have been imposed, but that UFP officers would be understandably hesitant about using it unless absolutely necessary because they would be forfeiting millions of people to the Borg (and then to death).

Cut the bullshit and conceed the debate.

You first sweetie.

[seanrobertson]

Oh, really?

That would've been right, but I changed my mind, Mr. Anonymous...
cough, Ossus.

You said, "Shut the fuck up, Sean." Sorry, bro, but things people
wouldn't say to my face are things I won't stand for on the internet,
either. That was a childish attempt to derail this argument.
Maybe it works with your typical "Trekkie," but it does not work with
me.

That is unacceptable, and if you're going to call me a moron
and pull moves like that, well...why don't we just cut through
the bullshit, here?

Your entire premise of a small Romulan fleet is based on
an interpretation of ONE piece of dialogue. That is the point
of this thread, is it not? You have ignored my efforts to demonstrate
that such could NOT have been what Hansen meant, as messy
as those posts were (and for that, I apologize; I'll gladly repost them
in readable format if one of the moderators would like to delete
the originals shortly thereafter). Why?

Clearly the words "bullshit" and the statements about ignoring your points (that I just spent several posts disecting)

No, you didn't. You totally ignored the two posts that were formatted
badly (for which I even apologized). Shortly thereafter, you pop
up with the "shut the fuck up."

Speaking to anyone else save this angry young kid I'm
playing with here: did Ossus not blow off my two-part,
admittedly badly formatted, rebuttal post? Ding ding!
Yes. It was condensed into something about nanites;
i.e., MORE dialogue interpretation.

As for bullshit...oh, well. I say bullshit a lot. Big fucking deal.
If you took THAT personally, we've got serious problems in
greymatterville.

do not qualify as insults. We may as well add lying to the list of things you have done on this thread, shall we?

Yeah. After all, this thread is about the crimes of Sean, how he's
an unrepentant, evil Rabid Trekkie (TM), a moronic Straw Man
construction worker, and whatever else.

Whenever you'd like to focus on the ISSUE at hand and stop
with this stupid ad hominemizing...bah. Maybe I'll take it up,
but I doubt you'll listen to anything I have to say anyhow. You've
got a RAGING hard on for me and I can't figure out why.

Must be because I posted something in your Dark Star bashing
thread, though I don't even KNOW the fucking guy. (shrugs)

[Master of Ossus]

Frankly, I'm disappointed with the "evidence" you have presented.
Most of them are fan sites with interpretations of
dialogue which, as you should know, as a rather poor source of
information from the get-go. Ironic that we should argue an
interpretation of Hansen's statement, the entire basis for your claim that the Romulan fleet is "small" (small relative to...WHAT?), and that you should turn to yet even more middleman sources.

Let's look at them.

Klingons - There are some Klingons among the people that were abducted by the Borg; (Unity)

Yes. Of course, only a simpleton would construct a false dilemma
that requires "all Klingons must be assimilated at Wolf 359."
There WERE other Borg incursions, after all. Or maybe I just
imagined "The Neutral Zone" and "I, Borg." Yeah. I imagined
it.

Demonstrate that Klingons served in any of those actions, which may have taken place too late for the Borg drones assimilated to travel back to the Delta Quadrant and then crash for five years before VOY picked them up.

In researching the episode in an effort to find the script,

Why didn't you try the site I suggested?

Hmmm.... Maybe because I POSTED THAT BEFORE YOU POSTED YOUR SITE! Again, I implore you to read the thread before you make posts.

I also discovered that Romulans WERE involved in the batte. According to:

http://members.aol.com/Ensdelk/unity.html

Chakotay plays a bit of possum and staggers outside to find that Riley and her friends, like Orum the Friendly Romulan and medic, are actually members of the 12-step Borg Recovery Program. They were captured at Wolf 359 and various other engagements, became part of the collective, watched as the cube was deactivated by an energy discharge (hats off to Mother Nature after all), and then found themselves once again individuals.

Christ Almighty, Ossus. Did you even READ what you quoted? "They
were captured at Wolf 359 AND VARIOUS OTHER ENGAGEMENTS."

I did. I assumed that such engagements were referring to one of two things: Smaller engagements revolving around Wolf 359 (as I don't recall any Borg incursions into Klingon space, off the top of my head), and ones in which the Cardassians were engaged.

You DID know the Borg assimilated Romulans over a year before
the E-D was thrown into J-25, didn't you?

Of course I knew that. I don't understand why you insist that the Klingons did not fight in Wolf 359, though you are potentially correct in that the Romulans did not make it to Admiral Hansen's Party.

Who gives a shit? That's NEVER said in the episode itself.
What about the Cardassians and other dozen species?
LEAP IN LOGIC, ANYONE?

And yet again, you disgrace yourself with a REVIEW of the
episode, adding yet ANOTHER DEGREE of interpretation on top
of your own.

Get the transcript or watch the motherfucking episode. Only ONE
person is said to have been assimilated at the Wolf system.

ONE.

Got that?

Conceeded, I was unable to get a transcript of the episode, as I noted in my post (which you apparently neglected reading).

This site was nice because it actually had an image of a Klingon BoP at Wolf 359 (The VOY staff lifted the image from DS9's "Way of the Warrior, then added the Cube in the background).

Wrong again. Classic non sequitur.

I'm curious...because a BoP faces a cube, why does it follow that
the Bird was in the Wolf system? Were Starfleet ships also in the
background?

The answer is a flat NO.

That sequence also showed Bajor and, if you wouldn't rely so
heavily on middleman sources, you'd see that it showed Federation
photon torpedos smashing into a D7-style battlecruiser, a little
girl running in a green field yelling, "Grandpa!" and quite a bit more.

Were they all at Wolf 359 too?

Evidently not. They were memories from people assimilted by the Borg. The presence of photon torpedoes actually demonstrates that Federation ships were at the battle (which is pretty unusual, given your claims that they could not be seen during the shots, and then your statement that they were Federation-type torpedoes [as opposed to Klingon or Romulan torpedoes]).

It also has pictures of some of the Borg drones, but you can't really tell what their races are from the pictures (even though one of the ones pictured was a Romulan, according to the dialogue).

Had you seen the episode or read the transcript, you'd know that, yes,
there was a Romulan among those ex-drones. Klingons and Cardassians,
plus lots of others too, to be a broken record. Were they ever said
to be assimilated at Wolf? No.

That's true. I don't have any idea, incidentally, where the Borg could possibly have encountered Cardassian forces.

http://www.ayala.fslife.co.uk/ep59b.htm

I was, unfortunately, unable to find an online script for the episode, but the video image of the battle is irrefutable evidence that the Klingons were at Wolf 359.

Total and utter bullshit. That cube could've been anywhere.

With Federation vessels in the area firing torpedoes? I don't think so. If anything, it demonstrates that the Klingons and Federation have been able to meet Borg attacks with ships from both the Klingon Empire and the UFP, which kind of shows that the two have reasonably good strategic speed, that the Borg are predictable in their main attacks, that the two sides have reasonable intelligence assets that are capable of detecting Borg movements before they happen, or a combination thereof.

And I repeat: this is STILL a red herring from the original point of
this thread (which you appear to have forgotten). Romulans,
remember? NOT Klingons. I noticed that you were silent when
I mentioned that earlier...(shrugs).

I'm really not ignoring that at all. I don't think that the Romulans were involved in the battle, but I don't see why SF would have thought about contacting them and then decided against it because they would not arrive in time to make a difference. SF was clearly doing several things that would almost certainly been futile, and they more importantly clearly had time to enact the nanite plan that they decided not to use because it would take too long (which is a very curious choice of inaction). In any case, if you READ MY OP you would know that the Klingon fleet was not a red herring because I specifically mention the Klingons in the OP and state that any ships along the Klingon border (the former Neutral Zone, or thereabouts) should have been able to make it back in time to assist, if the Klingons were involved in the battle.

Sean, further, you are CLEARLY a rabid Trekkie from this debate, and from others like it, that I have had with you. You ignore evidence until you are beaten over the head with it.

You are one dumb son of a bitch if you believe this. (I notice you have
no specifics, just more of your vaguerisms.) Who cares what YOU think?

I don't know HOW many times I've talked about the Empire whipping
the entire Trek galaxy successfully and with relative ease.

Oh good, meet my "vagueries" with one of your own. You have repeatedly attempted to claim that Imperial firepower estimates are wrong (even ones based on ICS figures), and that their shield strength is too high and unreasonable. Here's a quote from another thread:

That would mean roughly 1,000 Acclamator HTL shots would be required to drop an ISD's shield. I doubt
*that*: that'd be firing 3 200 gigaton/shot turbolasers continuously
for 4.4 minutes. We've never seen anything *near* that kind of
firing rate, and from the wattage qualifications Curtis gave us in _ICS_,
it's possible that a dozen or so simultaneous HTL hits would drop
a shield vector. Give or take a few (probably give...but thousands more?
Nah).

This is clearly incorrect. Note that this is an obvious ad hominem attack, but you attacked me first by insisting on an example.

You disregard facts in favor of your silly fantasies

Name ONE. I'm not the one prancing around pretending that ONE
PIECE OF DIALOGUE is proof that the Neutral Zone is X distance
from Earth!

So, what do you want? A piece from the ICS? Oh wait, you have a history of disregarding that as well!

that hold that the UFP and its allies would not lose as badly to the Empire as the rest of us are saying. That is my definition of a Rabid Trekkie.

"The rest of us" = ad populum.

Do I claim that I find it hard to believe one TIE could whip a GCS?

Yes.

Do I claim I find it hard to believe a squadron of TIEs could whip
a Borg cube?

Yes.

Do I even claim that I find it hard to believe the Millenium Falcon
has gigaton-ranged laser batteries?

Yes.

Therefore, you conclude, I must be a Rabid Trekkie. LOL...get real,
man.

Note for everyone: This is very similar to what DarkStar repeatedly does while debating Darth Wong. He takes a snippet of conversation and then rebuts that sentence fragment. Let's restore what I actually said, and then find out how incredibly Sean twists it out of proportion. I will add italics to the portion of the quote that he conspicuously snipped.

You disregard facts in favor of your silly fantasies that hold that the UFP and its allies would not lose as badly to the Empire as the rest of us are saying. That is my definition of a Rabid Trekkie.

Clearly the qualifying portion of the statement was that he disregarded facts, which is a definition I have advanced on other threads as well. This entire portion of the post is a clearly intentional strawman. Can you all see why DW is so ticked off by this tactic? It is clearly a malicious attempt to change the meaning of the words.

BoBW clearly demonstrates a spectacularly low ship count at the time of the first Borg incursion for all of the major AQ players that are generally considered to be among the more powerful groups in ST.

No, it doesn't, because you still refuse to acknowledge SOOO much
I've pointed out. The ONLY thing you could go on about was nanites.
Address all the rest, and we'll talk; I wanted to reformat it for you,
but given your really nasty, disrespectful attitude, I don't see the
point in extending that offer anymore. (If you calm down and
apologize, however, I'll gladly resend it. How many times do I
have to tell you--FUCKING SINCERELY, HARDHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!--
that I don't intend to be your enemy?)

If, however, you're just looking for yes-men, you are in the
wrong place, buck-o.

I leave it for the readers to decide what's going on with this portion of the post.

My premise for a small Romulan fleet is based on the correspondingly low Federation estimates from BoBW, and the fact that the Romulans did not, in fact, attack the Federation.

Why should they? Are you blind? The Federation and
Klingons had a mutual defense treaty. The Romulans
attack the Feds means the Klingons attack the Romulans.
Your view of war is far too one-dimensional.

Not really. I pointed out in another post on this thread that the reason the Romulans were not called was almost certainly because of their history of agression regarding the Federation. The point is that the Romulans could almost certainly destroy the Federation's industrial base quickly. Further, the Romulan unwillingness to attack the Federation later on is conspicuous because the Klingon Empire was later devastated by war (albeit with everyone having many more visible, top-of-the-line warships during the DS9 years).

You brought up the nanites, saying that they demonstrated a potential reason why the Romulans were not asked to help.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

Straw Man.

Point out the text...if you're willing.

(Let me guess. It's "too long and meandering" or somesuch.)

Hardly. Your text is pretty confusing, at times, but this is before all of that. This is from page 4 of this thread.

Not necessarily. No one thought the Borg would stop at Earth;
the whole nanite plan was dismissed because "in X weeks,
nanites might be all that's left of the Federation." Klingon assistance
needn't have come before the cube reached Earth.