Militarum Tempestus Scions Vs. the Enterprise-E

[Jub]

These rogue trader types tend to be a bit more open to unconventional tactics than the Imperium at large. So what's stopping them from hailing the Enterprise and asking to come aboard as a peace envoy from a new civilization. Then from there they could likely get a grand tour of the ship before they figure out how to assault it.

[Optimus Metallus]

Huh, good point. It actually wouldn't be a huge effort to get Picard himself to show them around the ship and talk all about what the Enterprise is and isn't capable of. Hell, maybe the Rogue Trader and his entourage could even sneak a teleport homer on board?

[Rogue 9]

Except that per the scenario they already blew up the Saratoga, so Picard is unlikely in the extreme to just let them board.

[Optimus Metallus]

Eh, the Saratoga is always blown up. I'm sure Starfleet has stopped taking that personal by now.

[Jub]

Rogue traders are supposed to be good at diplomacy, so perhaps they could claim it was a misunderstanding and pretend to seek a peace conference aboard the Enterprise.

[NecronLord]

These rogue trader types tend to be a bit more open to unconventional tactics than the Imperium at large. So what's stopping them from hailing the Enterprise and asking to come aboard as a peace envoy from a new civilization. Then from there they could likely get a grand tour of the ship before they figure out how to assault it.

Because by that point, any Rogue Trader worth his salt is going to double take at hearing they're in the third millennium and there is no astronomicon (easily verified by his navigator, who might well be coming with them), and start working out ways to try and get rich by selling his resources, or get home to the 41st somehow.

And that obviates 'shoot at them all and kill them RAR.' Because Rogue Traders generally understand that purging anyone that comes near you and setting them on fire is a bad way to get customers.

Scenario over, peaceful resolution, everyone benefits, no winner.

[Optimus Metallus]

Not necessarily. He could decide that he could take over and run the whole show himself and declare himself Emperor. To do that, though, he'd first need some information, which brings us right back to boarding the Enterprise and capturing it relatively intact...

[NecronLord]

That would be retarded. Where will he get fuel to last that long? Imperial ships guzzle gas and men like nobody's business.

[Simon_Jester]

The thesis that a rogue trader worth his salt would be smart enough to negotiate is, in my opinion, true.

On the subject of fighter-bomber attack...

Generally, the smaller something is, the further it needs to be away from a bomb to be safe; IE they'd have to have their unshielded Valkyries some distance away, and then approach the Enterprise.

Hoping that it is:
1. Obliging enough to stay still.
2. Unable to shoot them down.
3. Unable to restore the shield.

Frankly, even 'let's not provoke them' Picard is known to retaliate with photon torpedos.

Well, basically you'd have to get off a salvo of antiship munitions, and detonate them... say, a few kilometers or tens of kilometers away from Enterprise. You could estimate the distance if there's any sensor data on just how quickly the Saratoga's shields failed under bombardment. Picard may well retaliate by shooting back at the bombers, but if they get off enough munitions before being shot down, they can still have a pretty good chance of disabling Enterprise.

The overall action will be done in less time than it usually takes Picard to decide to go to warp and for the crew to engage the warp drive, so there's a good chance of hitting before they escape and causing enough damage to render them unable to fight effectively. The interceptors can strafe the hull once the shields are down, causing further damage and possibly targeting specific weapon mounts on the surface to put them more permanently out of action.

This might not work, and it'd frankly be a much better plan if the interceptors carried a large number of munitions that individually pose slight threat to the Enterprise rather than a handful of total overkill ones. But it's at least a semi-viable plan; we've seen large Trek starships disabled by wolfpacks of much smaller combatants before.

[NecronLord]

Well, basically you'd have to get off a salvo of antiship munitions, and detonate them... say, a few kilometers or tens of kilometers away from Enterprise. You could estimate the distance if there's any sensor data on just how quickly the Saratoga's shields failed under bombardment.

The Imperium does not usually do such things. In fact, Starhawk pilots are trained to fly under enemy shields - the slow-blade-penetrates-the-shield is how ordnance is so effective in BFG - before firing so they might just try that on the Enterprise and go splat.

People are for some reason assuming the Imperium's forces are very innovative, and that Starfleet, known to be very innovative, will sit there and take it.

Picard may well retaliate by shooting back at the bombers, but if they get off enough munitions before being shot down, they can still have a pretty good chance of disabling Enterprise.

The overall action will be done in less time than it usually takes Picard to decide to go to warp and for the crew to engage the warp drive,

What? Justify this claim! The man has a warp combat maneuver named after him and added to the war books, and is known to make split second decisions.

[NecronLord]

PICARD
Ah... my weapons officer on the
Stargazer.
(weak smile)
I was getting caught up in this.

RIKER
(puzzled for a moment)
Then, with your shields failing,
sir...

PICARD
I improvised. With the other ship
coming in for the kill...
(describes with his
hands)
... I ordered a sensor bearing,
and when it went into its return
arc...

DATA
... you performed what Starfleet
textbooks now call "The Picard
Maneuver."

PICARD
What any good helmsman could have
done. I dropped into high warp...
(with his hands)
... then stopped right off the
target vessel's bow...
(slaps hands together)
... and fired everything I had.

RIKER
By blowing into warp speed, you
appeared for an instant to be in
two places at once...

Totally not willing to think of using the warp drive at short notice in battle.

[Simon_Jester]

It's not that he's inherently incapable of reacting intelligently in a crisis, he's not dumb. It's... more on this below.

Well, basically you'd have to get off a salvo of antiship munitions, and detonate them... say, a few kilometers or tens of kilometers away from Enterprise. You could estimate the distance if there's any sensor data on just how quickly the Saratoga's shields failed under bombardment.

The Imperium does not usually do such things. In fact, Starhawk pilots are trained to fly under enemy shields - the slow-blade-penetrates-the-shield is how ordnance is so effective in BFG - before firing so they might just try that on the Enterprise and go splat.

People are for some reason assuming the Imperium's forces are very innovative, and that Starfleet, known to be very innovative, will sit there and take it.

Well, Starfleet is very innovative, but they are often strikingly slow to react efficiently in a crisis. This is probably a limitation of the TV format, now that I think about it- you need rising tension, so you need to show the crew of the Enterprise slowly reacting to a threat and escalating their responses gradually and finding more and more stuff that doesn't work.

So the shields are often on the brink of going down before Picard orders them to shoot back, the guards are always complacent and the prisoner predictably escapes before being restrained by the main cast, things like that.

And I really shouldn't assume that this is because of any inherent limitation on the crew of the Enterprise, because a lot of the situations they fly into would be vastly less interesting if they took the right steps immediately... even if said right steps are common-sensical.

On the other side of the line...

While it is possible that the Imperium simply doesn't have the concept of using superheavy munitions as proximity area-effect weapons against fragile targets, I'd be genuinely surprised. If you're fighting swarms of small Tyranid organisms, or trying to get through a minefield or something, using proximity weapons would be very helpful. The Imperium has had needs like that long enough that...

Well. I wouldn't be surprised if they DO have the capability, but I suppose I cannot prove that they have it. Aside from that idea, though...

The reason that I'm suggesting all these things is that the Imperium doesn't need to be innovative to think of them. They don't need to be innovative to have 'medium' weapons that are designed to be fired at 'small' targets, in order to avoid wasting energy on huge munitions that are total overkill on such vulnerable targets. They don't need to be innovative to, say, try to sneak a teleport homer onto the bad guys' ship if they get a chance. These are things they do on a regular basis, and have the technology to do.

It's like, if you have a gun, and someone tells you with Tyranids, the big guys control the little guys," and you duly shoot the big guys first, that is not a particularly innovative concept. The Imperium's more competent and flexible people usually can figure out basic stuff like this on the fly. It's in technological innovation that they stink to high heaven... but I'm not proposing anything that I consider to be technological innovation.

If you feel it would be 'innovation' for the Imperium to know how to detonate its ordnance as proximity weapons, then fine.

The overall action will be done in less time than it usually takes Picard to decide to go to warp and for the crew to engage the warp drive,

What? Justify this claim! The man has a warp combat maneuver named after him and added to the war books, and is known to make split second decisions.

OK, to be fair, I'm basing my opinions too heavily on the early season TNG I've watched a lot of lately. See above, and my remarks about how the crew of the Enterprise usually have to be in danger for quite some time before enacting precautions, even precautions that I would consider quite routine.

[NecronLord]

Well. I wouldn't be surprised if they DO have the capability, but I suppose I cannot prove that they have it. Aside from that idea, though...

The reason that I'm suggesting all these things is that the Imperium doesn't need to be innovative to think of them. They don't need to be innovative to have 'medium' weapons that are designed to be fired at 'small' targets, in order to avoid wasting energy on huge munitions that are total overkill on such vulnerable targets. They don't need to be innovative to, say, try to sneak a teleport homer onto the bad guys' ship if they get a chance. These are things they do on a regular basis, and have the technology to do.

A teleport homer is not an easily hideable piece of kit.

Official model, comes with the terminator kit shown. You can't exactly hide that behind a console. Even getting it on board is going to be a bit iffy. It ain't like the transmitter in Attack of the Clones.

Also, why are you assuming a rogue trader ship has a teleporter? In the Rogue Trader RPG, they're a rare archeotech component and you can only get one such component starting out.

[Lord Revan]

if you don't wanted to argue with out-of-universe arguments, I suspect the tactical inefficiency of Starfleet is a side-effect of their diplomatic training since most Alpha or beta quadrant species aren't inherently hostile it's probably that it's drilled into Starfleet cadets that making hostile actions (or actions that could interpited as hostile) is something that should be avoided if at all possible and such it's only when it's has become obvious that no peacefull solution is possible that do consider their tactical options though once they start considering them they tend come up with a solution rather quickly as with the Stargazer where the ship was practically disabled before Picard used the tactic that got named after him.

[Crazedwraith]

Totally not willing to think of using the warp drive at short notice in battle.

If Memory Alpha's description of the battle is of any accuracy, based on the episode in question...

The battle began when the Stargazer was suddenly fired upon by the Ferengi ship while traveling at warp 2 through the system. The ship was able to score two direct hits on the Stargazer. After attempts to warn the ship off had failed and with his shields nearly gone and the Ferengi closing in, Picard, with weapons coming to full charge, ordered a sensor bearing on the Ferengi ship and at the right moment, Picard devised what would later be known as the Picard Maneuver: he ordered the Stargazer to engage high warp for a split second, bringing the ship off the Ferengi's starboard bow. Since the Ferengi vessel's sensors were limited to light speed, it appeared as though the Stargazer was suddenly in two places at once.

With the Ferengi momentarily confused, they fired on the wrong ship; the one that was far away. With that, the Stargazer opened fire with a full phaser and photon torpedo barrage, destroying the attacking ship. However, the Stargazer's systems were failing, and the crew was forced to abandon ship in escape pods. The crew was later rescued, although the Stargazer herself drifted to parts unknown. The starship was eventually recovered by Bok, and used in his scheme to seek revenge against Picard, as well as to discredit the role of the "Hero of Maxia" in the Battle of Maxia with falsified logs claiming that Picard had been the one to attack the Ferengi ship without provocation. (TNG: "The Battle")

So he got ambushed. Got hit hard enough to knock his shields down while attempting to warn them off. Then pulled off his manoeuvre. The end result of that battle was one dead enemy and Picard having the abandon his ship. it's not exactly the stuff of legends.

Meory alpha may be off on the exact specific here. But I think it's pretty much canon the Picard Manoeuvre was a very last second stroke of brilliance that barely saved Picard's bacon.

[NecronLord]

Oh yes, it's a last minute solution, after the shields got knocked out... absolutely 110% like the situation described where a proximity blast (an unseen tactic for IoM bombers) has disabled the shields and theenemy is closing in then? Picard is slow to react to danger, until an actual crisis occurs, which is exactly what's being proposed.

Someone provide evidence that the IoM is capable of fusing its bombs for proximity blast to precisely take out the shields of an enemy ship that are a fraction of the power of those they're used to, if you're going to argue this is probable.

[NecronLord]

I am specifically irritated that people keep attempting to consider the most effective possible way for the Rogue Trader to act, without considering the probability of him acting this way, while the Starfleet faction are all considered to be acting in a manner consistent with their least effective traits in the show.

If you're going to have the IoM acting in a way they never act, then the starfleet personnel can also act with optimal efficiency, and retreat, whistle up a klingon bird of prey to drop in under cloak and get it to beam a photon torpedo into the bridge.

The UFP does that precisely as often as the Imperium makes perfect calculations to drop shields with proximity blasts from starhawks, IE never.

[Battlegrinder]

If we go with the Rogue Trader being willing to negotiate, or at least not open fire the instant the Enterprise show up (and he might be, given that when he encountered the Saratoga he'd have had the the chance to notice that Starfleet's response to unknown ships is not "raise the shields and go to red alert"), would he be able to hit the Enterprise with a sucker punch strong enough to cripple it? I'm more familiar with the ground combat side of 40k, mostly the Starius Defendiarius or whatever they call the Guard now, but I think this might work. Since Imperial and Federation ships both have the bridge at the top of the hull (I think), the Rogue Trader could even guess where the Enterprise's bridge is and be able to hit it hard enough with lighter weapons or jury rig a few mid-size ones (something Imperials will do, as demonstrated by Ciaphas Cain on several occasions) to knock it out and give his boarding parties enough time to get onto the Enterprise.

[NecronLord]

If we go with the Rogue Trader being willing to negotiate, or at least not open fire the instant the Enterprise show up

He's a rogue trader. His literal job, commanded by the God-Emperor of Mankind is to negotiate with folks outside the imperium. That is what the Emperor and the High Lords have given him a warrant to do.

(and he might be, given that when he encountered the Saratoga he'd have had the the chance to notice that Starfleet's response to unknown ships is not "raise the shields and go to red alert"), would he be able to hit the Enterprise with a sucker punch strong enough to cripple it?

Picard is smart enough to know what fighters coming in on an attack run are. Espeically as this is post Dominion war, so, no, they're not going to sit there with shields down.

[bilateralrope]

Espeically as this is post Dominion war, so, no, they're not going to sit there with shields down.

That makes me think the Saratoga had its shields up when the Rogue Trader destroyed it.

Which makes me wonder why he is trying to capture the Enterprise instead of talking with them when the Saratoga showed that they aren't a threat by being so easily destroyed.

Does the Federation use radio enough to communicate with him, or do they use subspace for so much that they might not even think about radio ?

[NecronLord]

Who knows, maybe he saw a shiny white hulled ship, and the captain had pointy ears?

[Battlegrinder]

If we go with the Rogue Trader being willing to negotiate, or at least not open fire the instant the Enterprise show up

He's a rogue trader. His literal job, commanded by the God-Emperor of Mankind is to negotiate with folks outside the imperium. That is what the Emperor and the High Lords have given him a warrant to do.

Fair enough. I only have a rough idea of what the job entails, since they haven't been a major element in the books I've read, and I keep getting viruses everytime I go on the 40k wiki.

(and he might be, given that when he encountered the Saratoga he'd have had the the chance to notice that Starfleet's response to unknown ships is not "raise the shields and go to red alert"), would he be able to hit the Enterprise with a sucker punch strong enough to cripple it?

Picard is smart enough to know what fighters coming in on an attack run are. Espeically as this is post Dominion war, so, no, they're not going to sit there with shields down.

I meant if he waits to launch fighters until after he's started negotiate, or even just opens up a launch bay and has them open fire from inside the hull.

[NecronLord]

Again, that's a hilariously innovative thing they never do in universe, if we assume the Rogue Trader is smart enough to do hilariously improbable plans then so is starfleet, and these guys can look forward to having a Klingon Bird of Prey start dicking with them from behind a cloak.

[Battlegrinder]

Again, that's a hilariously innovative thing they never do in universe, if we assume the Rogue Trader is smart enough to do hilariously improbable plans then so is starfleet, and these guys can look forward to having a Klingon Bird of Prey start dicking with them from behind a cloak.

Ok, then what's the threshold for "too innovative?" The torpedo thing was certainly a bit beyond 40k's playbook, but just popping open the fighter bay doors and shooting? I'm pretty sure "make nice and then hit them when they least expect it" is probably within the scope of allowable 40K tactical ploys.

[NecronLord]

Something suggested or shown in an official source.