Salvation War in the United Federation of Planets

[Jake]

Satan, from Stuart's Salvation war series, decides to launch his conquest of earth. Unfortunately, he has been putting it off for a little longer than anticipated, and instead of arriving at the dawn of the 21st century, his heralds portal in to Earth, the capital of the United Federation of Planets, in 2378. How would things turn out?
A few rules:
1. The federation's neighbors do not interfere
2. For the sake of an interesting discussion, the federation can not use transporters as weapons
3. Yahwey is free to intervene at any time he desires
4. All though war is certainly possible, if you believe the Feds can find a diplomatic solution, feel free to discuss it

[Phantasee]

The Federation gets overrun due to not having artillery of any kind and a lack of trigger guards.

[Serafina]

The Federation gets overrun due to not having artillery of any kind and a lack of trigger guards.

Indeed, they are very likely to loose earth to the baldricks, simply because their ground armies suck and are not numerous enough to fight them.
Orbital bombardment is not going to be much good, it can not be safely used on cities

Heaven would be even worse, of course, just like in the OT.

[Werrf]

The biggest difference I can think of would be that the Federation would figure out Portals a lot faster than the HEA did., since they're accustomed to multi-dimensional physics already, through working with subspace routinely. Hell would be penetrated immediately, Heaven not long after, it'd all be over before the Enterprise could bring in reinforcements. I'm assuming, with justification, that the Enterprise will be the only ship in range of Earth at the time.

Aside from that, there'd also be the advantage of impervious orbital decapitation strikes from phasers, and the shuttlecraft shields would almost have to be completely impervious to harpies, allowing them to stroll straight into hell, demolish Dis, do the same to the Eternal City, game over.

[Uncluttered]

Very few in the federation are affected by "The message"

The federation or may not get their ass kicked by the first demon wave. This depends on whether the OP wishes them to be bumbling fools or not.

Do we know what kind of fallout a photon torpedo has, or a phazer blast does. Because even bumbling fool feds can use those on a demon phalanx.

The federation will probably be quicker at detecting and locating the wormholes.
They'll probably just establish a forcefield around each one, sealing them in.

The feds will probably less angry at Yahweh, and Micheal would not be as threatened by the humans. He might even nogotiate with the federation.
The federation would not condone an invasion of heaven, unless heaven was an existential threat.
However, there are other galactic elements he could procure weapons from

Lastly Micheals duel with Yahweh would be much shorter.
"Oh this? This is a gift for you oh wise one. They call it a Photon war head, it creates a very bright light. I thought we could place it under your throne, so that it can shine back your brilliance!"
Oh, look at the time. I'm late for prayer and bingo."

Micheal would prevent a human takeover of heaven by decaring it a unique primitive culture.

Hmm. The feds might want to try to ignore heaven, arguing that the prime directive prohibits contact. Hell won't be a problem, since humans from warp-capable centuries live there.

[Serafina]

The biggest difference I can think of would be that the Federation would figure out Portals a lot faster than the HEA did., since they're accustomed to multi-dimensional physics already, through working with subspace routinely. Hell would be penetrated immediately, Heaven not long after, it'd all be over before the Enterprise could bring in reinforcements. I'm assuming, with justification, that the Enterprise will be the only ship in range of Earth at the time.

Aside from that, there'd also be the advantage of impervious orbital decapitation strikes from phasers, and the shuttlecraft shields would almost have to be completely impervious to harpies, allowing them to stroll straight into hell, demolish Dis, do the same to the Eternal City, game over.

Actually, no. We simply never SEE dimension-hopping in Trek, with two notable exceptions where outside help was a factor (Q-continuum and fluid space).

Furthermore, the main problem with getting to heaven is having the right coordinates - which the Federation does NOT HAVE.

Indeed, it is possible that they are going to be slower figuring it out, given their "jack of all trades, master of none"-approach to science. In any case, they do not have a starting advantage on that matter, tough they might have better measuring equipment.

Most damning of all is that they simply lack the weaponry to defeat enemy armies on their own territory. Starships are not used for fire support, and their armies consist of badly trained guys in pijamas with rifles. They might have a chance of killing a Baldric with them, but they are going to loose regardless due to sheer weight of numbers.
Given their typically abyssal infantry tactics - sucks to be them.

[Serafina]

Subspace itself should count.

Why? Because it's called "sub"?
Again, we never see Trek actually shifting to another dimension. Subspace might be helpfull, but i do not see how it automatically conveys the ability to shift to another dimension.

For another one, what was the TNG episode where the crew were abducted by aliens? Schisms? Phantasms? Something like that, near the end of the series. They are pulled into a "subspace domain" by weird ass aliens in their sleep. Riker eventually lets himself be captured, but does some drugs to stay awake and fight back. Then, if I remember it correctly, Geordi is able to beam him out of that weird dimension by attaching a tracer to him.

Well, that's something. That might actually be evidence for such a capability.


Either way, their utter lack of an actual military is still an important point - and i do not contest their ability to get to Hell eventually, just that they have it figured out already.

[Werrf]

Actually, no. We simply never SEE dimension-hopping in Trek, with two notable exceptions where outside help was a factor (Q-continuum and fluid space).

I'm thinking more that they would have a better theoretical basis for how Portaling could work, as they have worked with subspace and similar in the past. Not that they are able to do it right away, just that their understanding of spacetime is likely to be greater than our own.

Furthermore, the main problem with getting to heaven is having the right coordinates - which the Federation does NOT HAVE.

Those coordinates could likely be gained fairly quickly with a scan of the Heavengate in Hell, assuming they're able to capture it as the HEA did. What we have seen in the past suggests that the Federation has vastly superior technology for measuring spacetime than we have, which feeds back into the greater understanding of it and better theoretical basis for portaling.

Most damning of all is that they simply lack the weaponry to defeat enemy armies on their own territory. Starships are not used for fire support, and their armies consist of badly trained guys in pijamas with rifles. They might have a chance of killing a Baldric with them, but they are going to loose regardless due to sheer weight of numbers.

Is there actually a statement anywhere that starships are not used for fire support, or is it just based on the fact that we've never seen one being used that way? To be honest, given the amount of true ground combat we've seen in Trek, I don't think we have enough of a sample to decide whether starships are used that way or not.

Regardless, ground combat would probably never even happen. Forcefields have been shown being projected to free-standing sites on a number of occasions, so it would be reasonable to assume a forcefield could be erected around any portal, or in the path of any baldrick advance. Federation technology would probably also be better at closing portals - probably using the main deflector dish.

Best of all, they'd do everything they needed to do within forty-five minutes (ninety if it's a two-part episode), then be able to completely forget about it ready for next week's adventure!

[Serafina]

Regardless, ground combat would probably never even happen. Forcefields have been shown being projected to free-standing sites on a number of occasions, so it would be reasonable to assume a forcefield could be erected around any portal, or in the path of any baldrick advance. Federation technology would probably also be better at closing portals - probably using the main deflector dish.

Both of that is no use when the enemy is already on your ground and you do not know in advance where the portal will open.
Furhtermore, we never see Forcefields being deployed in open ground combat in a continuous fashion - those would have been very handy at the Siege of AR-something, yet they were simply not there.
And it's not going to stop Baldricks from rampaging trough your cities - humanity got a short, decisive victory, the Federation would not be able to hold back the initial charge and the Baldricks would figure out "hey, that planet is big, let' send large armies elsewhere". That is not a paradigm shift, merely a very sensible step - and i simply do not see how the Federation is going to stop large Baldrick armies with Redshirts.

[Phantasee]

I would also suggest that all the Nephilim were eradicated during the Eugenics Wars. They'd be my first act of genocide, anyway.

[Serafina]

I would also suggest that all the Nephilim were eradicated during the Eugenics Wars. They'd be my first act of genocide, anyway.

That would radically alter the setup, possibly going as far as completely removing the scenario.
Then again, the Baldricks/Angels would have to make original contact with earth SOMEHOW. So they might have the capability to open portals regardless - and the Federation would be in more trouble, since they now lack people with that capability. And if they have no people whose activity they can measure, they have a problem.

[Ryan Thunder]

Nephilim are created by Succubi. So even if they were eradicated them during the Eugenics Wars it's possible that they still exist a few hundred years later.

[Werrf]

Both of that is no use when the enemy is already on your ground and you do not know in advance where the portal will open.

Which would be where the advanced knowledge of spacetime and ability to scan for spatial distortions would come in handy, to spot them and surround them before they're completely open.

Furhtermore, we never see Forcefields being deployed in open ground combat in a continuous fashion - those would have been very handy at the Siege of AR-something, yet they were simply not there.

Not seeing something done does not mean it couldn't be done, wouldn't be done, it just means that for whatever reason, it wasn't done in that case. Of course, given the quality of Trek writing, that's as likely to be because nobody could be bothered writing a line to justify it as anything else.

And it's not going to stop Baldricks from rampaging trough your cities - humanity got a short, decisive victory, the Federation would not be able to hold back the initial charge and the Baldricks would figure out "hey, that planet is big, let' send large armies elsewhere". That is not a paradigm shift, merely a very sensible step - and i simply do not see how the Federation is going to stop large Baldrick armies with Redshirts.

Bull. This keeps coming up in the Salvation War thread itself, and the fact is that Baldricks just don't think that way. Remember Abigor's stated battle plan - cavalry to break through enemy lines, infantry to follow through and besiege the cities. Now, consider what an orbiting starship would do to his nice, neat formations, a point you haven't addressed beyond "it's not done". No need for photon torpedoes, just slice through them with phasers - there would be nothing anyone could do about it. Add a better understanding of spacetime to detect portals and/or open portals back the other way, the Federation would be able to neutralise any portal being opened - either with forcefields or by directly closing it with main deflector technobabble, and hell's armies are pretty much at a standstill.

Oh, and keep in mind, also, that the reason the redshirts are so ineffective as infantry in the series is because they're up against enemies with ranged weapons that more or less match their own. A hand phaser - even the little palm-of-the-hand ones they use as sidearms - is going to kill a lot of baldricks in not very many shots, so even in infantry combat, the redshirts will be able to mow the enemy down in job lots. The only reason early HEA infantry was less than effective was because their weapons weren't powerful enough to hurt the baldricks effectively. Hand phasers will not have that problem.

[Simon_Jester]

Actually, no. We simply never SEE dimension-hopping in Trek, with two notable exceptions where outside help was a factor (Q-continuum and fluid space).

Furthermore, the main problem with getting to heaven is having the right coordinates - which the Federation does NOT HAVE.

Indeed, it is possible that they are going to be slower figuring it out, given their "jack of all trades, master of none"-approach to science. In any case, they do not have a starting advantage on that matter, tough they might have better measuring equipment.

I disagree. See, Trek does have significantly more advanced physics than we do, especially in the field of being able to generate, control, observe, and model exotic effects in the structure of spacetime. They know enough about it to generate warp bubbles to order, to classify dozens of different bizarre time travel and "subspace" phenomena, and so on.

That's going to be significant. They should definitely be closer to a complete system of "portal physics" than Salvation War humanity was at the time of the Message, just as 2008-Salvation War humanity would have been closer than the humanity of 1900.

We may like to poke fun at the flaws in the Federation's social structure, but that doesn't mean that they're cavemen. Sometimes having a solid background in very advanced physics and the analysis of exotic physical phenomena honestly helps. And when giant demons are pouring out of rifts in space... that's one of those times.

Most damning of all is that they simply lack the weaponry to defeat enemy armies on their own territory. Starships are not used for fire support, and their armies consist of badly trained guys in pijamas with rifles. They might have a chance of killing a Baldric with them, but they are going to loose regardless due to sheer weight of numbers.
Given their typically abyssal infantry tactics - sucks to be them.

Yes. On the other hand, remember one thing. Even if the Baldricks completely overrun Earth... the Federation can go on. Civilization will continue to exist, even though the Federation will be badly damaged. Therefore, even if Satan's forces win on the ground, it isn't over yet- the Federation can either nuke large areas of Earth from orbit, or get desperate and actually try to assemble a competent ground army- though I'm not sure what form such an army would take, or how long it would take them to train one.

[Jake]

I see we have some conflicting opinions already. Here's my point of view. The battle of wolf 359 has demonstrated that the federation can assemble 40 starships for the defense of earth in roughly 4-12 hours. Assuming things go badly with the heralds (I doubt they will show the enthusiasm for negotiation that the federation does) the federation will easily have at least 40 starships in the span of days that it takes for abigor's army to arrive. What happens next is really up to the Feds. Since the demonic army appears in the middle of the desert, civilian collateral damage from a ground bombardment should be minimal. Accroding to Mike Wong, photon torpedoes have a yield around 24 megatons and phasers can deliver around 10^12 Joules/second. Frankly if starfleet wanted to they could cripple abigor's army with one photon torpedo (nuclear explosion calculator). However, I don't really see a starfleet captain wanting to massacre 400,000 primitive lifeforms, even if they are hostile. What I would do is send down several intrepids, and order them to fire their phasers on low yield around the demon lines. Seeing several flying objects nearly 4x as long as a football field surrounding their army with fiery death, I believe the demons will be much more inclined to negotiate than they were before. In fact, considering most of the inhabitants of hell are underrepresented poor, I would think the federation's communist mindset would be quite well received there.

[Junghalli]

They might have a chance of killing a Baldric with them, but they are going to loose regardless due to sheer weight of numbers.

Would the Baldricks have a numbers advantage?

Because there are more of them? My memory is kind of vague on this but I seem to vaguely recall there being a population estimate in Armageddon that put Baldrick numbers at below one billion. I also seem to vaguely recall some DS9 episode supposedly having a casualty estimate for a hypothetical Dominion conquest of the Federation and it was a good couple of orders of magnitude above that.

Because they can concentrate their forces more effectively because of portalling? That failed to happen in the actual story, despite the fact that if it was feasible for them it should have been a much bigger advantage over TSW Earth than over Trek Earth, which has transporters. Of course, by the time they had a clue what they were up against humans had figured out that a thin sheet of metal pretty reliably blocks their telepathy, and since they apparently usually* need to make contact with human psychics to open the portals...

* Since those psychics are descendants of human and Baldrick or Angel hybrids one assumes they must have first arrived on Earth through some other method, but we never see them use it in the story so presumably whatever it is it's a lot harder, or otherwise less practical (for all we know they came through some naturally occurring Hellgate on Earth that comes and goes every couple of millennia).

Personally, I think the big question is whether the Feds figure out how easily their telepathy is blocked as early in the game as TSW humans did. Baldrick telepathy can do some pretty interesting things, like that bit with Memnon making himself invisible a la the Shadow, pity for them wrapping some aluminum foil around your head renders you mostly immune to it, and without it the only real advantage I see your average Baldrick having over your average Redshirt is simple greater physical strength and toughness.

[CSJM]

I think you're forgetting something important. The invasion was only such a big failure because the baldricks weren't ready for what the humans could throw at them. And they weren't ready because they only checked up on Earth periodically, every three or so centuries. If they were given the three extra centuries, they'd be able to see how the Earth changed, and while that would in no way mitigate the disparity in firepower, it would allow them to - at least somehow - prepare. Belial already created something like a disruptor rifle (although much bulkier) by the end of Armageddon?, he might do more with more time and some modern engineers in his hands. At least some sort of strategies could be developed, the Earth situation could be better monitored and by the time of the Invasion, if the Federation is still there, the baldricks will have adapted their invasion plan to account for massive flying "chariots" that shoot "lightning" like Yahweh could only hope to.

[Ilya Muromets]

Wouldn't air power carry the day here anyway? Even given the Federation's lack of a decently sized ground army and assuming that, for some reason, they can't use orbital bombardment. They still have quite a number of shuttles and smaller, atmosphere-capable vessels. What's stopping those from just flying over the battlefield and phasering or photon torpedoing the fuck out of the Baldrick armies? Even a dozen runabouts over a battlefield, firing phasers on long bursts, is bad news for a purely infantry army with no real way to strike back. Harpies and other aerial baldricks would be fucked because nothing they do would mean anything to a shuttle's shields, nor do they have any adequate defense from being phasered out of the sky.

[Junghalli]

Is a typical redshirt even that bad a combatant against a Baldrick?

It's easy to dismiss redshirts because they seem pitifully ill-equipped compared to modern soldiers but it's not like your average Baldrick seems to be any better. Assuming the redshirts have a tinfoil hat equivalent the Baldrick's only advantage over them as far as I can see is greater physical strength and toughness. Unless Baldricks are unusually phaser-resistant redshirts should be able to put up a fairly even fight as long as they can avoid hand to hand combat.

The bigger Baldricks might be more of a problem for them, but they seem to be a relatively small minority.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think those dune buggies in Nemesis would totally ruin the shit out of those lobsterhinos or rhinolobsters or whatever you call them.

[Stofsk]

I don't see why the Federation and Hell can't just get along. Open a dialogue, reach mutual understanding, that sort of thing. Why exactly is Satan wanting to conquer earth for anyway. Real estate? Oil? What's he got to gain that a few dozen antimatter-armed photon torpedoes would prevent him from getting in the first place?

[Ford Prefect]

If they were given the three extra centuries, they'd be able to see how the Earth changed

I don't really read it, but isn't a very central premise of Armageddon how Hell doesn't notice the world changing for thousands of years?

[CSJM]

No, they've been checking up on it every once in a while - it wasn't actually changing much for thousands of years. Think what was going on back in 18th century - even firearms weren't quite widespread back then, IIRC. If at all. Most of humanity's advances happened in the last century - we "slipped in between checks". The point was that Hell couldn't anticipate the humans' technology exploding in complexity so fast.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

No, they've been checking up on it every once in a while - it wasn't actually changing much for thousands of years. Think what was going on back in 18th century - even firearms weren't quite widespread back then, IIRC. If at all. Most of humanity's advances happened in the last century - we "slipped in between checks". The point was that Hell couldn't anticipate the humans' technology exploding in complexity so fast.

Hell, given the apparent fetish for simpler lifestyles seemingly exhibited by more than a few people on TNG and post-TNG-era Earth; the baldricks may go right on believing that Earth has remained unchanged up to the point when the Army of Abigor opens up a portal to the Middle East and conveniently piles up its half a million troops in one tiny spot . . . transforming the Hellish invasion of Earth into a day's work for the tactical officers aboard a couple of Mirandas.

[Shroom Man 777]

Even if they saw that the Earth was radically advanced, what could they do to catch up?