The Wet Rag Speaks Out...

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Alright, fine. I suck at debating because almost everything I initially wanted to debate is old hat, and that's my fault because I was arrogant and didn't take the time to actually read anything until now. Alright, time to adapt.

This posting is intended as something of a R&D page, for the biggest subject on this site:

Star Trek versus Star Wars.

In the past few days, I've taken the time to read Lord Wong's site (which I should have done in the FIRST PLACE) and the postings of this forum concerning the military, industrial, political, scientific and espionage capabilites of the Galactic Empire compared to the United Federation of Planets.

So far, the Empire is winning by a margin of at the VERY least 1000 to one in every catagory. This is... Depressing, to say the least. With the Federation having defeated or otherwise pacified it's biggest foes in it's galaxy, the threat posed by outsiders is growing. I would like to use this posting to attempt to find a way for the Federation to at least defend itself against the GE, as in it's current state it would barely do anything to the Empire except provide more resources to it's ever growing power. Just as it prepared to face the Borg, the UFP needs to prepare to face this new menace.

As Captain Picard said,"The line must be drawn here! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" So, if you are a Trekkie, a neutral, or a Warsie who doesn't hate Trek, I ask your help in solving these problems.

I've listed the Military Problems below:


Torpedos
- Lord Wong has accurately described the warhead power (and the following flaws as well) of the standard UFP tactical missile weapons, i.e. photon and quantum torpedos. Ealas has filled in the abilities of the transphasic torps that Voyager possessed in "Endgame".

The first flaw is that all three types are hampered by the fact that only half their destructive force is delivered to it's target: The rest is blasted out wastefully into space. The second flaw is the fact that the warheads are far too underpowered to do any real damage to Imperial starships. The third is that the torps are simply too slow to evade Imperial 'flak defenses' in any way. Weapons do no good if they're destroyed before hitting their targets.

Possible study lines: Subspace compression of warheads, transphasic and quantum theory extrapolation, different explosives?

Phasers
- Lord Wong and others have all pointed out the weakness of phasers. Starfleet phasers would probably be effective against Imperial fighters, but wouldn't scratch Imperial capital ships. These weapons are too underpowered and lack sufficient range for use against ISDs, and their accuracy is lacking so they won't do any good shooting down incoming weapons fire.

Possible study lines: Subspace compression wave phasers, anti-matter based blasters, subatomic disruptors?

Sheilds
- Lord Wong and others have also pointed out how weak Federation sheilds are compared to Imperial ones. This is true; Compared to Imperial sheilding, Federation sheilds might as well not be there at all. They are thin, underpowered, and have absolutely ridiculous geometry. The Endgame armour is a bit better, but most likely not up to Imperial standards.

Possible study lines: Hull form sheilding, meta-phasics, warp sheilds?

Power
- Federation vessels are severely underpowered as a whole. Anti-matter will only get you so far.

Possible study lines: Quantum singularity power cores, alternate space taps?

Design
- Current Federation ship designs were created with the Borg, Dominion and possibly the Breen in mind. As such they will pose no threat to Imperial starships.

Possible study lines: Heavy assault-oriented designs, secondary fighter defense grids?

Engines
- The Federation's warp drive is obselete for interstellar travel. Imperial vessels can jump across thousands of lightyears in a matter of hours; Federation ships can cross such distances in decades at best.

Possible study lines: Quantum slipstream drive research, transwarp, gravitic catapults?

Military Structure
- Federation ground troops suck. They have no protective armour, are badly equipped and trained, and have no ground-based artillery or calvary to back them up. They don't even have a seperate branch for ground forces. The admirals in command are morons aside from a few promising canidates, who with the close of the Dominion War are probably being "retired". Logistical support is vulnerable.

Possible study lines: UFP Army branch proposals, military re-structuring, ground-based military equipment upgrades, new convoy formations etc. ?


I won't take up anymore space on this page, as the military technology and structure gap seems to be the biggest one between the two cultures. Any ideas, comments, strategies: Please post. Thank you.



.

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

The Empire has the industrial base of most of a galaxy, so this is probably it's greatest advantage instead of the military tech. Still, the military tech is the end result, and if the UFP can match that, maybe it can solve the industrial problem?

Just a quick add-on.

[Mr Bean]

Possible study lines: Subspace compression of warheads, transphasic and quantum theory extrapolation, different explosives?

Nothhing so complicated
Its called just creating a shaped exposion
One does this simply by placing explosion resitant materials in a certian pattern so the blast is reflected down a certian channel and causes more damage

1 Stick of TNT will scare a 1 Inch metal plate if one places it on top and lights it

1 Stick of TNT shaped will blow a hole in a 1 inch think Metal Plate

Possible study lines: Subspace compression wave phasers, anti-matter based blasters, subatomic disruptors?

Phasers ARE that already, They *move things out of contiumum rather than destroying them, This kills ships by hulling them and venting the atmosphere or by removing key organs in human sized targets. A better idea would be to switch to simple DET weapons as Phasers don't seem to justifly the cost/size constrants they impose VS the extra damage the slight change recation they do is worth

Possible study lines: Hull form sheilding, meta-phasics, warp sheilds?

Simple extra shielding space is all they need realy, While the Batman Armor(Ref Voyager though thats not its REAL name ) is more useful then standered hull armor Meta-phasics are only useful in certian conditions and Warp shields already exist
Mearly adding Extra layers of shielding and cutting down on the damn Captian Sized Cabins for the Non-coms is a good way to start

Currently E-D for example has ONE set of Shield Generators to protect the ship, adding a second set/warp core so even if one shield falls there is an additonal one undereath would be a good idea

Power
- Federation vessels are severely underpowered as a whole. Anti-matter will only get you so far.

Possible study lines: Quantum singularity power cores, alternate space taps?

First you have to fix the damn safty problems with them then check up to see what the Borg use to power thier ships would be the best idea

Possible study lines: Heavy assault-oriented designs, secondary fighter defense grids?

Fighters for ST are a terrible idea at least with the Manvrabilty we see if not nessarly the speed(The Speed in ST fighters is just fine however weaponry and manvurabilty...)

[Anarchist Bunny]

The UPF is hundreds if not thousands of years to come close to holding the slightest candle to the Empire. But unless they get the drive to do so, they could go tens of thousands of years without enough military advancement to stand up to the Empire.

Although they will probly have a way to walk around in a constant state of orgasm. And all the pluses of getting drunk with out the nasty side effects.

[Darth Wong]

Torpedos
- Lord Wong has accurately described the warhead power (and the following flaws as well) of the standard UFP tactical missile weapons, i.e. photon and quantum torpedos. Ealas has filled in the abilities of the transphasic torps that Voyager possessed in "Endgame".

The first flaw is that all three types are hampered by the fact that only half their destructive force is delivered to it's target: The rest is blasted out wastefully into space. The second flaw is the fact that the warheads are far too underpowered to do any real damage to Imperial starships. The third is that the torps are simply too slow to evade Imperial 'flak defenses' in any way. Weapons do no good if they're destroyed before hitting their targets.

Possible study lines: Subspace compression of warheads, transphasic and quantum theory extrapolation, different explosives?

Too much technobabble. They need more raw power first and foremost. Concentrate research on building extremely heavy, high-density fusion or M/AM warheads with very large payloads while maintaining stability for storage.

Phasers
- Lord Wong and others have all pointed out the weakness of phasers. Starfleet phasers would probably be effective against Imperial fighters, but wouldn't scratch Imperial capital ships. These weapons are too underpowered and lack sufficient range for use against ISDs, and their accuracy is lacking so they won't do any good shooting down incoming weapons fire.

Possible study lines: Subspace compression wave phasers, anti-matter based blasters, subatomic disruptors?

That's too much work, and they would need better power-generation technologies to feed them. They would be better off having huge numbers of missile launchers on each ship, instead of just one or two torpedo launchers, so they can hit an enemy ship with a massed barrage of huge >100 megaton fusion or M/AM weapons. Alternatively, they could try to fit the biggest, most powerful warheads they can onto fighters, so that they can do more than just nip at the heels of larger ships.

Sheilds
- Lord Wong and others have also pointed out how weak Federation sheilds are compared to Imperial ones. This is true; Compared to Imperial sheilding, Federation sheilds might as well not be there at all. They are thin, underpowered, and have absolutely ridiculous geometry. The Endgame armour is a bit better, but most likely not up to Imperial standards.

Possible study lines: Hull form sheilding, meta-phasics, warp sheilds?

A better tactic would be eliminating heavy capships in favour of swarms of missile-armed light craft. Their heavy capships are simply target practice for Imperial gunners, but fast fighters have a chance to get in and pound on an enemy vessel with nukes. In large numbers and with concentrated, co-ordinated fire from much larger, more powerful missiles, they might be a threat.

Power
- Federation vessels are severely underpowered as a whole. Anti-matter will only get you so far.

Possible study lines: Quantum singularity power cores, alternate space taps?

That kind of research takes far too long to yield fruit. We could be looking at centuries or millenia. Consider the fact that scientists and engineers have been researching nuclear fusion for power generation since the 1950's.

Possible study lines: Heavy assault-oriented designs, secondary fighter defense grids?

As I said before, go the other way. Go small. They would take heavy casualties and it wouldn't be pretty, but their chances are still better that way. The best way to neutralize the enemy's heaviest weapons (the monster high-gigaton class heavy turbolasers) is to use ships that his heavy weapons can't hit. Use carriers for range and deploy fighters at long range so the carrier doesn't have to get involved.

Possible study lines: Quantum slipstream drive research, transwarp, gravitic catapults?

They've been working on them for a long time (transwarp since Kirk's era).

Military Structure
- Federation ground troops suck. They have no protective armour, are badly equipped and trained, and have no ground-based artillery or calvary to back them up. They don't even have a seperate branch for ground forces. The admirals in command are morons aside from a few promising canidates, who with the close of the Dominion War are probably being "retired". Logistical support is vulnerable.

Possible study lines: UFP Army branch proposals, military re-structuring, ground-based military equipment upgrades, new convoy formations etc. ?

Now this is an area where competent leadership could easily produce a vastly superior military organization without having to rely on unfeasible long-term pie-in-the-sky research projects panning out in an insanely short time. With their existing technology and someone with common sense to redesign their ground combat equipment and tactics, the Federation could easily field ground forces with orders of magnitude more tactical effectiveness than they have.

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Fighters for ST are a terrible idea at least with the Manvrabilty we see if not nessarly the speed(The Speed in ST fighters is just fine however weaponry and manvurabilty...)

Mr. Bean, I was thinking more along the lines of a seperately powered defense grid like on B5 for the UFP capital starships. Smaller weapons that don't use much power keep TIEs away so the larger weapons on the ship can pound away at the ISDs. TIEs are by their very nature built cheaply (they have no sheilds, no hyperdrive etc.). Because they're built cheaply they're easy to destroy, so positioning a few automated phaser strips on the hull could keep the TIEs out of weapons range so they couldn't do more damage to the Fed ship. This defense grid could run off some sort of mission-pod generator you could hook onto the ship if needed?

I'm just throwing out ideas here, really.

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Thank you, Lord Wong. I threw out some ideas without fully appreciating the situation. THank you for your wisdom.

The Akira class starship could be the best model for ships to be used against the Empire. It packs fifteen torpedo launchers, is fast and manuverable for a heavy cruiser class vessel, and can deploy up to forty fighters. Fast missile boats like the Defiant could be another good idea too, given how small and fast they are?

[Mr Bean]

If I where to make a ship and this is just from my old Engineering days (I never got around to staying in long enough to get a degree but I got nearly 30 hours worth of credit hours for it back in my old records) a good strong ST ship would be

Hmm lets say

Call it the Akula because I like that name and it means Shark in Russian and its my small homage to a certian TOS memeber

Now then strip EVERYTHING out those nice crewers get, Strip everything but Transporters out and ONE small shuttle bay, Crew that with 100 people, double everything(IE Two Warp and Computer cores located at Fore and Aft sections, the back powers just the Engines and shields while the front powers a phaser strip or two plus the torp launchers and a lighter secondary ship) Its fast and hits hard and thats the idea, Mount 5 Torp Launchers on the Front of the Ship and the rest of the ship is room for the *relativly small crewers and torp storage. The Hull Armor will be light by design its fast it hits hard and if you build it right, you could have less than 100 people aboard

But a ship that can drop a spread of 20 Q-Torps every 2 seconds would be pretty damn powerful, Don't mount any on the rear, forget it, The idea of the ship is to charge in, firing like mad then warp away and come around for another run, if they get behind you, screw it, better to have the shields and speed to run and turn around then the extra strip or bay that will tie up power resources

The whole thing the Feddys need to do is get a decent ship designer in there

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Stormtrooper THX-1138 said: In Star Trek, there is a particular type of technobabble referred to as a verteron particle.These particles have some very detrimental effects on local subspace, and effectively render devices and technologies which depend on subspace useless.(Re: Episode, Force of Nature) On board a Federation starship, such disruption effectively renders the vessel a dead hulk in space, since everything from the Warp drive to the main computer relies on some kind of interaction with subspace to function.

[quote/]

Perhaps I'm making too great a leap here, but since verteron particles are SO disruptive to subspace-based systems, and we've been using the subspace medium for quite some time, I'd think it highly likely that Imperial scientists and technicians would be at least aware of its existence.And once our sensor logs /spies/ inspections of captured vessels reveal just how dependent Federation starships are on the subspace medium, its not too much to expect perhaps a refitted Immobilizer or perhaps a Dominator -class Star Destroyer with high-power Verteron-field projectors being fielded shortly thereafter.

Uh oh. Immobilizers with veteron partical feild projectors... So much for relying on warp to get out of Immobilizer's mass shadows. Sheilds could be adapted to block verteron particles, but if the sheilds rely on subspace too... Great. Something else to prepare for. I guess the mantra of this is "If you think your enemy has it, he probably already does." Not the case in WWII, but here and now, yup.


Tactical counter-measures?

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

The whole thing the Feddys need to do is get a decent ship designer in there

Yes! Progress! Thank you, Mister Bean! Fed ships always did have too many luxuries. Even the Defiant has replicators in every quarters. Rip out the luxury stuff on the Akira class, turn the cargo bays into bunk rooms, and fill those empty spaces with as many torpedos as you can fit!

The upgunned torpedos Lord Wong proposed though. Let us continue!

[Mr Bean]

Tactical counter-measures?

Use a diffrent or back-up power system, IE use what the Borg does

And/Or save an old Fasion In case of Particules 200 Mega-ton Nuke you shove out the air-lock towards the enemy and detonate it using a realy long fuse and a match

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

The Borg ALSO rely on subspace! However, I'm not sure the computers on Fed ships really rely on subspace. It's probably only their warp core and comm system that really needs it. That, and sheilds.

On the subject of a last-ditch effort, if they can, I think a Fed starship ramming an ISD at Warp 2 would be interesting to watch. If no warp, then program the self-destruct to over-load the warp core, nacelles, and to detonate the remaining torpedos. Making it as big a boom as possible is the key.

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

So far, the best tactic against the Empire found (thanks Lord Wong and Mister Bean!) seems to be using large numbers of fighters and light to medium strike craft against Imperial fleets. Increase the power of torp warheads to as high a level as possible, strip away all the Starfleet niceties like replicators, holodecks and all that other BS, and pack the ships with a massive torp load out.

Akira and Defiant class ships are so far the best canidates. Akiras are fast, manuverable and pack over a dozen torp launchers and also carry fighters, Defiants are fast, agile and small. Onward.

[Evil Jerk]

The Empire has the industrial base of most of a galaxy, so this is probably it's greatest advantage instead of the military tech. Still, the military tech is the end result, and if the UFP can match that, maybe it can solve the industrial problem?

Just a quick add-on.

The Empire's industrial might would still assure victory against the UFP.
The difference would be how much of a bloody nose they could suffer if the Feds actually got their act together.

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

The Empire's industrial might would still assure victory against the UFP.
The difference would be how much of a bloody nose they could suffer if the Feds actually got their act together.

Not necessarily. If the Feds could get their act together in time, and were able to wear down the Imperial forces by destroying their logistical support and taking out enough of their ships, the Imps might pass it off as too difficult. All the other races they faced they easily defeated: One that fought back and actually gained some ground might demoralize the military commanders enough to pull out.

Then again, there is the Emperor. Still, the Feds do have a good shot at keeping the Imps down at least. The Emperor though... Damn. Need something to offset the whole Sith advantage. Anything available in Trek?

[Ender]

Lets go into this with the opening cavet that, since this is all extrapolation and guess work A) it's against most debating places rules and B) since it is not even official, this is about as relevent to helping the Federation as the comment about the upgraded Promies.

Torpedos
- Lord Wong has accurately described the warhead power (and the following flaws as well) of the standard UFP tactical missile weapons, i.e. photon and quantum torpedos. Ealas has filled in the abilities of the transphasic torps that Voyager possessed in "Endgame".

The first flaw is that all three types are hampered by the fact that only half their destructive force is delivered to it's target: The rest is blasted out wastefully into space. The second flaw is the fact that the warheads are far too underpowered to do any real damage to Imperial starships. The third is that the torps are simply too slow to evade Imperial 'flak defenses' in any way. Weapons do no good if they're destroyed before hitting their targets.

Possible study lines: Subspace compression of warheads, transphasic and quantum theory extrapolation, different explosives?

We don't know enough about transphasic or their use of quantum mechanics to make any predictions. Directing the blast would help some, but overall not do much. As to the subspace portion, do you mean like subspace warheads and tricobalt devices? Impracticle, as the energy transfered from subspace to realspace is something like 1 kt RS for every gt in SS. Plasma torpedoes similar to those formerly used by the Romulans are not focused and seem to be less effective against moving targets, hence the swithch to photons. Their best bet would probably be trying to build some form of Dreadnaught, but those would be easily shot down. In fact given the danger posed to the Connie, returning to standard thermonuclear warheads might be best.

Phasers
- Lord Wong and others have all pointed out the weakness of phasers. Starfleet phasers would probably be effective against Imperial fighters, but wouldn't scratch Imperial capital ships. These weapons are too underpowered and lack sufficient range for use against ISDs, and their accuracy is lacking so they won't do any good shooting down incoming weapons fire.

Possible study lines: Subspace compression wave phasers, anti-matter based blasters, subatomic disruptors?

Their accuracy is not all that lacking, 100 % accuracy is impossible. In fact, the accuracy the Federation shows is far too good, hence the often stated position that they employ no ECM in the AQ. The Subspace phasers have the same problem I mentioned before. A/M blasters would be about as effective as phasers against shields, and would be a rather bad idea as it means yet another part of the ship becomes a potential bomb. And if you read about NDF, phasers are subatomic disruptors.
Now if they can get the kinks worked out, isokinetic cannons might be effective. They were designed to fight heavily armored and shielded craft. Course then you have to define heavily armored and shielded, as the armor and shields on the strongest Trek ships pale in comparrison to the Warships used by the Empire. Another alternative is to spiral the strips. As power is in part dictated by the length of the strips, winding them in a spiral fashion would allow for greater length in a smaller area.

Sheilds
- Lord Wong and others have also pointed out how weak Federation sheilds are compared to Imperial ones. This is true; Compared to Imperial sheilding, Federation sheilds might as well not be there at all. They are thin, underpowered, and have absolutely ridiculous geometry. The Endgame armour is a bit better, but most likely not up to Imperial standards.

Possible study lines: Hull form sheilding, meta-phasics, warp sheilds?

Their shields are already hull forming, they can also be set to bubble in certain cases (God onl knows why though). Metaphasics would be good as they would prevent bleed through, but calcs show that they are actually weaker then standards as a result (I believe the math is back in one of the old User99 thereads). I can find nothing on warp shields and am forced to conclude you mean either shields for use while in warp or the nav deflectors, both of which would be useless.
Really, their only option for shields is to try to pump a rediculous amount of power into them. I suggest heavy armor.

Power
- Federation vessels are severely underpowered as a whole. Anti-matter will only get you so far.

Possible study lines: Quantum singularity power cores, alternate space taps?

The romulans use QS reactrs, and have about the same power generation as a GCS. Guessing about alternate space is pointless as we know nothing about it. I see 2 options.
1) The height of the warp core dictates in part the power it can produce, hence the problems with the Defiant class. An easy solution would be to use your command of gravity to allow huge cores inside standards ships. Simply run them horizontally from prow to stern instead of vertically and use gravity control to make that portion of the ship seem like it is still vertically in line with the rest of the decks.
2) See if you can use protomatter to generate power

Design
- Current Federation ship designs were created with the Borg, Dominion and possibly the Breen in mind. As such they will pose no threat to Imperial starships.

Possible study lines: Heavy assault-oriented designs, secondary fighter defense grids?

This is a topic brought up time and again.

Assuming even weapons distribution and no tech limits (IE the Honorverse ships)...
In space warfare, there are 2 really effective designs: Dagger and Sphere. The dagger allows for half the total weapons to be brought to bear in 4 directions, about 70-90% of the weapons in the forward direction, and 30-10% to the rear where the placement of the engines and their radiation will make targeting difficult. Plus anyone competent is going to place heavy armor on the engines to protect the crew from radiation and not make them targets.
The Sphere is good because it basically allows 50% of the total weapons to be brought to bear in any direction.
Note the two favored designs of the Empire are the dagger (ISD) and sphere (DS)

Idealy the Feds wouldwant to mimic these designs. However the requirements of narcells limit that. They would be best served by trying to mimic the dagger shape. Bring the narcells in close ala the defiant and cover them in heavy armor. Also mount some shielding and PD guns there. Move the bridge down into the center of the ship. Install multiple warp cores horizontally, and for god's sake design them effectively. Move the impulse engines to the rear. Their current placement means that the lower hull is getting constantly bathed in radiation. Mount torpedo launchers in groups at points along the hull, but also put an extremely large cluster of them at the prow. This would allow them to get a solid opening volley off and could seriosly help. Mount spiral wound type 12 phasers all over the place, and put some PPCs on turrets for antistarfighter work. Cover the thing in slabs of heavy armor ( a meter or better thick would be best) and have minimal windows. See if you can't get your shielding up like the Borgs where is is in the GT at least. Remove all energy wasteful convienence devices from the ship(holodecks, replicators). Replicators should only be used in the machinest mates spaces for parts fabrication. Pump all that spare power into war systems. Move away from the "energy field for everything", and pump that power into weapons and shielding as well.

I would forsee ships like this serving in the role of battleships, Soverigns as Heavy Cruisers, Promies as Light Cruisers, Akiras as Destroyers, and Defiants as Frigates. IF this is the FKR Alliance, Klingon BOPS would do well as corvettes.

Engines
- The Federation's warp drive is obselete for interstellar travel. Imperial vessels can jump across thousands of lightyears in a matter of hours; Federation ships can cross such distances in decades at best.

Possible study lines: Quantum slipstream drive research, transwarp, gravitic catapults?

All impracticle, 7 of 9 said once that even with all the data Voyager had collected, the Federation simply lacked the technological precision to replicate better FTL echnologies.

Military Structure
- Federation ground troops suck. They have no protective armour, are badly equipped and trained, and have no ground-based artillery or calvary to back them up. They don't even have a seperate branch for ground forces. The admirals in command are morons aside from a few promising canidates, who with the close of the Dominion War are probably being "retired". Logistical support is vulnerable.

Possible study lines: UFP Army branch proposals, military re-structuring, ground-based military equipment upgrades, new convoy formations etc. ?

How about simply having ground forces, period. You can build from there later. The lack of competent MILITARY personel in starfleet is a continuing and growing problem as seen by the presence of Admiral Janeway in Nemisis. As for logistics, this is hampered on two points:
1) they use the same ships for taxining people, moving materials, conducting experiments, and fighting wars. Quite simply, they need to break the fleet apart there and have dedicated ships.
2) The slow speed of Warp also hampers logistics. They basically need alot of forward bases to resupply from when embarking on a huge campaign, and they won't get them.

And additional change would be the standardizing of the fleet. This would ease up on the neccesity of different supplies for each class of ship.

Industrial Capacity
The Empire has the industrial base of most of a galaxy, so this is probably it's greatest advantage instead of the military tech. Still, the military tech is the end result, and if the UFP can match that, maybe it can solve the industrial problem?

Quite simply, they cannot solve this. It would require more access to resources, and they cannot get at them. They are surrounded by other "nations" and cannot expand. They could opt to buy them (Ala Japan in WW2), but the strained budget brought about by wartime would make this difficult and probably hurt them in the long run.

[Evil Jerk]

The Empire's industrial might would still assure victory against the UFP.
The difference would be how much of a bloody nose they could suffer if the Feds actually got their act together.

Not necessarily. If the Feds could get their act together in time, and were able to wear down the Imperial forces by destroying their logistical support and taking out enough of their ships, the Imps might pass it off as too difficult. All the other races they faced they easily defeated: One that fought back and actually gained some ground might demoralize the military commanders enough to pull out.

I don't think there's really a precident for that, total war means just that, the Empire didn't get where it was by backing off at the first sign of trouble.

Then again, there is the Emperor. Still, the Feds do have a good shot at keeping the Imps down at least. The Emperor though... Damn. Need something to offset the whole Sith advantage. Anything available in Trek?

No, you can't have Q, he'll be too busy watching the proceedings with a bag of Q-popcorn.

[Ender]

Damn, there was only one post here when I started typing that thing

[Ender]

Stormtrooper THX-1138 said: In Star Trek, there is a particular type of technobabble referred to as a verteron particle.These particles have some very detrimental effects on local subspace, and effectively render devices and technologies which depend on subspace useless.(Re: Episode, Force of Nature) On board a Federation starship, such disruption effectively renders the vessel a dead hulk in space, since everything from the Warp drive to the main computer relies on some kind of interaction with subspace to function.

[quote/]

Perhaps I'm making too great a leap here, but since verteron particles are SO disruptive to subspace-based systems, and we've been using the subspace medium for quite some time, I'd think it highly likely that Imperial scientists and technicians would be at least aware of its existence.And once our sensor logs /spies/ inspections of captured vessels reveal just how dependent Federation starships are on the subspace medium, its not too much to expect perhaps a refitted Immobilizer or perhaps a Dominator -class Star Destroyer with high-power Verteron-field projectors being fielded shortly thereafter.

Uh oh. Immobilizers with veteron partical feild projectors... So much for relying on warp to get out of Immobilizer's mass shadows. Sheilds could be adapted to block verteron particles, but if the sheilds rely on subspace too... Great. Something else to prepare for. I guess the mantra of this is "If you think your enemy has it, he probably already does." Not the case in WWII, but here and now, yup.

Actually, that is a plausible ship. There is already a variation on the standard Interdictor hull that has hyperspace pulse mies mounted on it. I think it's name starts with an A.

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Now if they can get the kinks worked out, isokinetic cannons might be effective. They were designed to fight heavily armored and shielded craft. Course then you have to define heavily armored and shielded, as the armor and shields on the strongest Trek ships pale in comparrison to the Warships used by the Empire. Another alternative is to spiral the strips. As power is in part dictated by the length of the strips, winding them in a spiral fashion would allow for greater length in a smaller area.

Thank you Ender, for this and everything else. Hm... The Voyager armour is a good start, but what can be done to increase it's strength?
Perhaps... What if you "infused" a metaphasic sheild into the armour? We don't know what the armour's made of, but we could add to it's strength by meshing it, right? Then again, we don't even know if we CAN mesh it.

Star Trek Australia. Com has several designs of Dagger-designed Federation starships. They're all small attack craft like the Defiant. Did you read Lord Wong's posting on this? Perhaps using masses of Federation fighters and light strike craft (supported by slightly bigger ships that are essentially flying torp batteries) would allow the Feds to even the odds? They can't go toe-to-toe with them with cap ships, but masses of smaller ships, carrying heavily powered up torps in huge clusters of tubes might do the trick?

[Andrew Joshua Talon]

Actually, that is a plausible ship. There is already a variation on the standard Interdictor hull that has hyperspace pulse mies mounted on it. I think it's name starts with an A.

Well yeah, it's a plausible ship and it could be devestating to the Fed's defense efforts. How can we adapt to such a weapon?

Hm... Trek ships use A/G fields, right? What if they pulled an Andromeda on Interdicters so modified and accelerated torps at them in the absence of subspace?

[Sabastian Tombs]

Then again, there is the Emperor. Still, the Feds do have a good shot at keeping the Imps down at least. The Emperor though... Damn. Need something to offset the whole Sith advantage. Anything available in Trek?

Take some Vulcans and Betazeds.
Inject them with kironide.
Wait six to eight hours.

Source: ST:TOS Plato's Stepchildren

Note: A single Platonian was strong enough to hold the Enterprise in orbit, and to block all communications between the Enterprise and Starfleet Command.

[Darth Wong]

Star Trek Australia. Com has several designs of Dagger-designed Federation starships. They're all small attack craft like the Defiant. Did you read Lord Wong's posting on this? Perhaps using masses of Federation fighters and light strike craft (supported by slightly bigger ships that are essentially flying torp batteries) would allow the Feds to even the odds? They can't go toe-to-toe with them with cap ships, but masses of smaller ships, carrying heavily powered up torps in huge clusters of tubes might do the trick?

Mind you, we are only talking about ideas for improving your odds against a very small Imperial force here. If the Empire decides to throw its vast weight into a war, you're fucked. And even if it's just a small force but it decides to be ruthless by simply hyperjumping into Earth orbit and bombarding Earth into a radioactive wasteland with no warning, there's not much you can do. But given the goal of reducing the size of the tactical disparity in ship-to-ship combat, I believe improvements could be made.

[Darth Wong]

Take some Vulcans and Betazeds.
Inject them with kironide.
Wait six to eight hours.

Source: ST:TOS Plato's Stepchildren

Note: A single Platonian was strong enough to hold the Enterprise in orbit, and to block all communications between the Enterprise and Starfleet Command.

How would he do that when he's been vapourized by heavy turbolaser bombardment of the surface?

[Sea Skimmer]

Star Trek Australia. Com has several designs of Dagger-designed Federation starships. They're all small attack craft like the Defiant. Did you read Lord Wong's posting on this? Perhaps using masses of Federation fighters and light strike craft (supported by slightly bigger ships that are essentially flying torp batteries) would allow the Feds to even the odds? They can't go toe-to-toe with them with cap ships, but masses of smaller ships, carrying heavily powered up torps in huge clusters of tubes might do the trick?

Mind you, we are only talking about ideas for improving your odds against a very small Imperial force here. If the Empire decides to throw its vast weight into a war, you're fucked. And even if it's just a small force but it decides to be ruthless by simply hyperjumping into Earth orbit and bombarding Earth into a radioactive wasteland with no warning, there's not much you can do. But given the goal of reducing the size of the tactical disparity in ship-to-ship combat, I believe improvements could be made.

The Federations best bet is to employ swarms of sublight, possibly drone, missile corvettes. Each salvo's its payload of missiles, then follows it missiles in for a ramming run.

Actually ships built for ramming might be the best option. Give the thing engines strong enough that it doesn’t need a mass-lightening field, and mount a bunch of weak phaser's on the bow, both to harass intercepting fighters and to direct against the target ship to try screw up the fire control gear. Scanning through a beam of pure technobabble is going to screw things up at least a little.

And don’t forget the active decoy cartridges