The Star Trek Puzzler

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2002-10-09 07:33am

YOU are in charge of strategic planning and tactics for the Federation. You get to decide how to defend the Federation against attack.

A powerful, aggressive enemy (the Borg or, if you prefer, the Empire) has placed an outpost at the edge of your territory and appears to be building a major power base (shipyard, barracks, orbital weaponry, etc.). You estimate that the base will be complete in six months. While under construction, it has a garrison of 30 enemy starships, each more than a match for many of your own (Borg cubes or Star Destroyers, for instance).

You can use any technology that the Federation is known to possess, even if it's a one-hit wonder. For instance, you can use Soliton Wave generators as weapons, but you can not use Genesis devices or Trilithium torpedoes. You may request assistance from the Klingons and expect to get some, but not as much as you'd like. You can not get help from any other neighboring government.

What's your strategy for defending against the alien threat?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-10-09 07:41am

Build Akulas, Lots of them

Gather half the fleet and start it blazing (Umm I mean sloowly hobbling) towards the the target

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2002-10-09 10:45am

Step one:

Send every goddamned ship within 6 month's travel of the base to it. Distribute plans for a phase cloak to every ship, have them than can make their own, and others for those who can't.

Step two:

Use the phase cloak to penetrate their defenses, then demolish their production facilities. Then start decloaking ships inside theirs. Turn remainder around, go home.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2002-10-09 11:15am

Send hit and fade raiders behind enemy lines to dirupt supply lines to the uncompleted base. When they start pulling surrounding ships to escort the supply ships, start to raid near by enemy colonies and other smaller bases within range.
While this is happening, gather a large enough fleet nearby the target area, and when enough enemy ships have been siphoned off to protect other assets, ATTACK!
Use a multivector attack and not a moving wall. Send in small torpedo boat like vessels on strafing runs on stationary defences while larger ships move in to engage remaining large ships. Move in by atleast two maybe three angles to spread out their fleet, and bottle them up between your fleets and the planet or station. Let the shooting start.

By the way this is only if the treat force is ST, would not work if it was the GE. SF dose not have enough ships to counter a threat force that large from the Empire. Best shot is to surrender early and enjoy the benifits of being a Imperial Citizen..

Solid Snake · Post by **Solid Snake** » 2002-10-09 11:57am

Ask the Vorlons for help... Or build small ships bristling with high yield nuclear weapons... Ditch the phasers, only use them for point defense..

Failed Glory · Post by **Failed Glory** » 2002-10-09 02:09pm

I like the supply line attack strategy.

I would place an emphasis on covert ops prior to engagement. Infiltrate, emplace, destroy.

I would also send Ferengi delegates just to piss the Empire off with their babble about profit and lobes.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2002-10-09 02:25pm

like in all wars the army marches on its stomech. so i'd hit their supply line dirupting this material supplies. after that i'd then send a detatchment with cloaks to search for and locate their food supply generation locations and abliterate the food production capacity off site. then start making lighting raids on the base and its production facilitise to knock out of slow down thier construction sceduals. this should kill off their supply of spare parts for thier ships. then begin hit and fade missions on their picket ships doing as much damage as i can while keeping my losses mininal. in the end i should be able to cause enough damage to weaken thier defense fleets to the point of beagin ablre to do full attacks on the base istelf.

Failed Glory · Post by **Failed Glory** » 2002-10-09 02:42pm

Isolder74 wrote: then start making lighting raids on the base

Ya, break all their lightbulbs! if you can't see me, how ya gonna hit me, huh?

Sorry, just kidding

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2002-10-09 02:52pm

Failed Glory wrote:
Isolder74 wrote: then start making lighting raids on the base
Ya, break all their lightbulbs! if you can't see me, how ya gonna hit me, huh?

Sorry, just kidding

you know i meant lightning raids

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2002-10-09 02:52pm

Failed Glory · Post by **Failed Glory** » 2002-10-09 03:06pm

Ya, I know what you meant and normally speeling on a message board is never perfect and hardly worth noting. But this one brought out a funnier espionage mission then the intended raids.

Anyways, to qualify, lightning strikes are a good idea.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2002-10-09 03:19pm

Failed Glory wrote:Ya, I know what you meant and normally speeling on a message board is never perfect and hardly worth noting. But this one brought out a funnier espionage mission then the intended raids.

Anyways, to qualify, lightning strikes are a good idea.

true but that typo does really change the meaning

Failed Glory · Post by **Failed Glory** » 2002-10-09 03:23pm

I don't wanna fight. I'm hungover, tired, and hungry and my Thanksgiving weekend is just starting and you're right, it doesn't change the idea at all.

Nobody mentioned assasination as a possibility. I think that work against the Empire's officers.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2002-10-09 03:37pm

i wasn't trying to start a fight but laugh

allong with you at my mistake

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-10-09 03:41pm

I am still laughing at the thought of stealing all the light panels, maybe raid the uniforms and undergarments next....

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2002-10-09 03:43pm

THe Yosemite Bear wrote:I am still laughing at the thought of stealing all the light panels, maybe raid the uniforms and undergarments next....

Stop your making me choke on my lunch

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-10-09 03:54pm

Sorry, I forgot Refrences to ASVS's "Laundry Wars" is just plain WRONG.

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2002-10-09 11:23pm

I hate to say this, but I was hoping for a bit more originality in this thread. So far I've seen...

1) Send lots of ships at them
2) Attack their supply lines
3) Send lots of phase-cloaked ships at them
4) Distract them by attacking other nearby assets

I have some serious problems with these strategies...

1) Did I not make it clear that one enemy ship can destroy MANY Federation ships?

2) Not only will the enemy protect it's supply lines, both of the postulated enemies (the Borg and the Empire) have the drive speed to leave Federation starships in the dust, making interception rather... problematic. You can try that if you want, but you're going to have to explain how you're going to pull it off.

3) Phase-cloak technology is not a technology that the Federation is known to possess. "The Pegasus" included just one prototype, and the urgency of Pressman's effort to recover that prototype underscores the likelihood that the plans for this thing never existed anywhere but on that one ship. Given the circumstances surrounding its recovery, Federation retention of the device and technology seems rather unlikely.

4) I have described no other nearby assets to attack. It's just the one base building up on the border.

Any other ideas?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-10-10 12:35am

The other problem, of course, with interdicting supply lines is that ISD's carry many of their own supplies, and many bulk transports are so heavily shielded that damaging them would be a major problem for many Federation ships.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2002-10-10 12:37am

I was assuming the Borg scenerio cause i figured the Fed's wouldn't have a chance against the Imperial one

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2002-10-10 01:17am

I as well was going for the ST universe enemy. If the enemy has to protect their supply line with the 30 or so ships listed, then they can't be at the base to defend it. That was the over all statagey I was going for, the classic spread the enemy out routine. By attacking secondary targets you get further dissolution of enemy forces. Weather or not you list other assets in the area, they must exist and there fore are a target. The supply line I was thinking of would be the one for the construction of the base, disrupt this and there is no base......

Robert Walper · Post by **Robert Walper** » 2002-10-10 01:40am

I'll ignore the Imperial perspective for now.

I'm sure you know my opinion on both accounts already Ted.

The Federation is facing several problems:

Speed: Borg vessels can use transwarp coils and transwarp conduits, which leaves Federation warp speed in the dust, as you pointed out.

Numbers: I'm not sure how big this Borg base would be, but if it is a planet guarded by three or more cubes, like the one seen in Scorpion, the Federation has a major offensive challenge. Despite whatever ultimate failure on the Borg's behalf, StarFleet's best fleets are unable to stop a single cube plowing through their defences heading to Earth. In both incidents, they survived by the skin of their teeth, with the cube virtually in orbit.

Firepower: Apparently a single cube possess enough firepower to dust at least forty Federation ships. In the ST:FC, hours of prolonged combat and perhaps hundreds of Federation ships still cannot prevent a cube from entering Earth orbit, despite previous experience with the Borg, and the Federation's ships undoubtably upgraded somewhat due to the Dominion war.

Special technology: I'm rather cautious of the Federation's ability to use special technology against the Borg. After all, if they don't deploy it against the cube heading towards Earth, what makes them suddenly capable of deploying it against cubes present at some Borg power base? And given the Borg's technological superiority over the Federation, they could probably deal with a soliton wave fairly easily, and other similar ranged attacks.

My thoughts anyhow...

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-10-10 02:02am

Let's face it the best chance the Outpost has, is a Luciferian deal.

Q, Morden, the Three men hiding in the shadows, please come out now and save their sorry assess for "A Price" of course.

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2002-10-10 07:38am

Isolder74 wrote:I was assuming the Borg scenerio cause i figured the Fed's wouldn't have a chance against the Imperial one

It doesn't really matter. I'm looking for innovative uses of the Federation's resources to try to take out one base belonging to an enemy that they can't defeat with their conventional weapons and methods.

Ted C · Post by **Ted C** » 2002-10-10 07:42am

Knife wrote:I as well was going for the ST universe enemy. If the enemy has to protect their supply line with the 30 or so ships listed, then they can't be at the base to defend it. That was the over all statagey I was going for, the classic spread the enemy out routine. By attacking secondary targets you get further dissolution of enemy forces. Weather or not you list other assets in the area, they must exist and there fore are a target. The supply line I was thinking of would be the one for the construction of the base, disrupt this and there is no base......

As Robert noted, the enemy supply line is not necessarily vulnerable. If the Borg had the terminus of a transwarp conduit in the system, the Federation would have no way of intercepting their supply ships. You could propose a plan for destroying a Borg transwarp conduit if you want; that would effectively cut the supply line.

Also, there is no requirement for other assets in the area. They have a base on one planet in one system... period. You either have to destroy 30 enemy ships, or avoid fighting them and just hit the planet.