Land Power

[Alyeska]

Mike. I am not stating that Earth has tons of defensive ships at all times along with hundreds of orbital weapons. What I am saying is that there are assets in system and that Earth is not completely defenseless. The statement that it was is an exageration. Starfleet did appear to learn from its mistakes. By the time the Breen attacked they had assets in place that swiftly destroyed the Breen fleet. I talked with Chris and he gave me the quotes. All it says is that the Breen made a surprise attack on San Francisco and then their forces were attacked by Starfleet and that most ships were lost. Apparently no fleet count was given for the Breen. And then by End Game (Voyager) we know that Earth has at least 30+ ships within less then 5 minutes time by Warp.

[Lord Poe]

It looks like a hell of a lot more of San Francisco was decimated than just Starfleet Command:

http://www.atlantera.de/bajor/fchead.JPG

And the Breen did all this in less than 5 minutes? And 80 ships were allowed to get this close to Earth before they were destroyed?

[Alyeska]

It looks like a hell of a lot more of San Francisco was decimated than just Starfleet Command:

http://www.atlantera.de/bajor/fchead.JPG

And the Breen did all this in less than 5 minutes? And 80 ships were allowed to get this close to Earth before they were destroyed?

TNG had the Breen stated to have cloaking devices. Their getting that close isn't completely unheard of.

[Gil Hamilton]

Conceaded, but its still hardly within orbit of Earth even if its within Lunas orbit. Even high geosynch orbits have the Earth quite a bit clooser then that. The pictures of Earth I have seen from such orbits had the Earth quite a bit bigger then that.

"Earth Orbit" is quite large. Remember that the Moon is more than a light second from Earth and it's definitely in Earth orbit.

No 'Now or NEVER' is when the Cube settles into Earth orbit and the fleet has been destroyed. THAT is literaly the last stand. THe fleet was still active with quite a few heavy ships and was still pounding it out with the Borg. Even without Picard there was still a good chance for victory by the Fleet, you had the Cube taking quite a bit of damage. If the fleet had failed or expanded its weapons, then you may well have seen the defences start up. Given how Taboo Earth using or deploying military force is in 'Homefront', its not that surprising if they held off opening fire until it was the only option left. Phasers and torpedoes volleying up from Earths surface into space by the dozens MIGHT just classify as 'wrecking paradise' and it would make just as much sense politicaly as anything else regarding Earth.

Did you take a bong hit? Once the Borg cube completes orbital insertion, it's ready to attack the surface of the planet directly. At that point, it's going to bad things to the planets surface with it's guns. I very much doubt that the commander of Earth's defenders is sitting in the C&C wringing his hands worried that opening fire upon an attacking invasion force will scare the citizens and "wreck paradise", especially when the trademark of said invasion force is scooping cities out of the ground with tractor beams and pulling them into orbit. The point of defending the planet is to quickly destroy their foe before it reaches the planet, not after. The Earth defenders should have opened up on the Borg Cube during the battle.

Sphere, not Cube. And the E-E was in close pursuit. You wana risk blasting the Fereration flagship when it has matters well in hand? The sphere is a weak ship, a single Q-Torp volley would kill it! Its nowehre near as tough as a Cube. Do you launch ICBM's at a warship approaching your country? Or do you wait for your bigger better warship to blow it out of the water?

Typo, I meant the sphere. And it isn't risking the flagship. The Enterprise could have been hundreds of kilometers behind the sphere while in pursuit. That's a great time for the defense force to blow the shit out of the sphere.

And they were about to do so, if the Sphere hadn't generated the tempral vortex and vanished.

Evidence that they had their fingers on the trigger?

Yes and technicaly Patriot missiles can differentiate between friendly and enemy aircraft in a dogfight, but you don't see them being fired much into furballs do you? The E-E had the firepower and was engaging the Sphere. There was simply no reason for the far weaker sphere to warrent an alpha strike from Earth. If the Fleet had been destroyed and nothing else was left, THEN they would have engaged, But one 'escape pod' for all intents and purposes with a Sovereign class in hot pursit? Why risk friendly fire? Its just commen sense.

It's space combat, not close combat dogfighting. The Fleet could have easily spread out a little and continue bombarding the Cube, while giving the defense force of Earth room to shoot at the Cube too. There is plenty of Borg cube to go around. After all, even with the Federations weak ranges, they are bound to be able to hit a Borg cube moving in a straight arc. And it's common sense to fire at targets of opportunity, which includes the Sphere, which wasn't exactly a small object, not ignore it. Space is big, no matter how StarTrek tends to depict it, hitting something on purpose is hard enough. Accidently hitting your own forces with guided space weapons is nearly impossible, or should be, unless you are claiming that their targetting really is that bad.

[Howedar]

It looks like a hell of a lot more of San Francisco was decimated than just Starfleet Command:

http://www.atlantera.de/bajor/fchead.JPG

And the Breen did all this in less than 5 minutes? And 80 ships were allowed to get this close to Earth before they were destroyed?

I am hugely unimpressed. Breen weapons are so impotent that they cannot take out the Golden Gate with a single hit? The Golden Gate is by all means a solid and well-built structure, but a hit on the roadbed didn't take out either main cable, nor did a hit on the north tower weaken it to the point of collapse! For fuck's sakes, I do not exaggerate when I say that a large Russian AShM would do better than that. A single kiloton would have fucking demolished that tower.

[Kamakazie Sith]

It looks like a hell of a lot more of San Francisco was decimated than just Starfleet Command:

http://www.atlantera.de/bajor/fchead.JPG

And the Breen did all this in less than 5 minutes? And 80 ships were allowed to get this close to Earth before they were destroyed?

I am hugely unimpressed. Breen weapons are so impotent that they cannot take out the Golden Gate with a single hit? The Golden Gate is by all means a solid and well-built structure, but a hit on the roadbed didn't take out either main cable, nor did a hit on the north tower weaken it to the point of collapse! For fuck's sakes, I do not exaggerate when I say that a large Russian AShM would do better than that. A single kiloton would have fucking demolished that tower.

I don't think the goal was to destroy the city. It was more of a pyschological attack then anything else....this is according the episode as well.

Think of the Dolittle raid....

[Gil Hamilton]

I don't think the goal was to destroy the city. It was more of a pyschological attack then anything else....this is according the episode as well.

Think of the Dolittle raid....

Wouldn't annhilating San Fransisco have a much bigger psychological effect? After all, they sent those ships on a suicide mission, impotently spitballing the city seems hardly worth it when they could have destroyed worthwhile targets with those ships, rather than spending them to scare some people.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Think of the Dolittle raid....

It might be psychological, but honestly, if the Doolittle raid bombers had the ability to wipe Tokyo out, I really doubt they would have held back. The "psychological" raid was damage limited to due limits in the destructive ability of a mere 16 B-25s going off a carrier.

[Chris OFarrell]

"Earth Orbit" is quite large. Remember that the Moon is more than a light second from Earth and it's definitely in Earth orbit.

Yes but Borg cubes don't mass the same as Luna. Generaly speaking Geosynch is considered the highest orbit for ships.

Did you take a bong hit? Once the Borg cube completes orbital insertion, it's ready to attack the surface of the planet directly.

And it never made it to that point, the fleet was still blasting away with abbadon at it and their attacks were still effective enough. At the rate the cube was progressing towards Earth, it was still some distance away. Borg ships have an extreemly straighforward MO, they target the greatest threat and kill it. Currently the fleet was that threat and they were causing damage. While the fleet attack, they don't attack Earth. Its not like they were blasting towards Earth at a significant fraction of C here.

At that point, it's going to bad things to the planets surface with it's guns.

IF it got that close, yes. It was still nowhere near that close and was busy dealing with the fleet. You will MAKE Earth a target to the Borgs one track mind if you start shooting, especialy given that the fleet still has a good chance of taking it down short of its target.

I very much doubt that the commander of Earth's defenders is sitting in the C&C wringing his hands worried that opening fire upon an attacking invasion force will scare the citizens and "wreck paradise", especially when the trademark of said invasion force is scooping cities out of the ground with tractor beams and pulling them into orbit.

And given that the Cube came nowhere near doing that, its a moot point. This wasn't an 'All or Nothing' issue here. If the spehre is any indication, Borg planatery assault weapons have a relativly short range. The cube was in no shape to assault Earth, there was still a considerable fleet blasting at it. If BOBW was any indication, the Cube has to get to quite a low orbit to begin its operations.

The point of defending the planet is to quickly destroy their foe before it reaches the planet, not after.

And again, the Cube has not REACHED the planet as yet, the fleet is still engaging it and is still effective in damaging it.

The Earth defenders should have opened up on the Borg Cube during the battle.

Possibly. Of course THAT might have gotten the Borg to actualy fire back AT Earth to supress the defences as the Borg ignore msot things until they BECOME a threat. Currently the fleet is that threat. You break them off and have Earth open up, the Cube may well start with blasting a few cities. The smart thing is to make Earth a minimal target UNTIL you NEED to use its firepower, as shown in FC they did not need to use the firepower.

Typo, I meant the sphere. And it isn't risking the flagship. The Enterprise could have been hundreds of kilometers behind the sphere while in pursuit.

Eh? It flew right past the Ent then Picard orders a pursit course. When it entered the tempral wake, the particles hit the E-E a matter of seconds after they were generated. Given the relative velocities of the two ships, she could not have been very far behind.

That's a great time for the defense force to blow the shit out of the sphere.

Except that the E-E is in pursuit and Picard is in charge and again, you do NOT want to make Earth a target. Frankly I don't know why Picard didn't fire when he was chasing the Sphere. But Picard and his weapons are at point blank range to the sphere, Earth and its defences are far further away.He has the ball.

Evidence that they had their fingers on the trigger?

What you think when the Borg are bearing down on Earth they don't have the defences manned? Hell YOUR the one who has been arguing through the thread that the planet does have surface to space weapons. Just because they DIDN'T fire does not mean they were not capable of it. If the fleet had been destroyed or the sphere not under hot pursuit, they probably would have engaged it.

It's space combat, not close combat dogfighting.

Irrelevent. In fact its far greater in terms of difficulty After all, even with the distances involved, accuracy is going to be even more difficult with the fleet swarming around the target.

The Fleet could have easily spread out a little and continue bombarding the Cube, while giving the defense force of Earth room to shoot at the Cube too. There is plenty of Borg cube to go around.

COULD have, yes. DID NOT, which is why the weapons did not FIRE. Quite possibly because with the Admirals death, C4I had broken down and the fleet was uncordinated at the time.

Federations weak ranges, they are bound to be able to hit a Borg cube moving in a straight arc.

I am not disputing their ability to do so, I am showing why they did not do so. Specificaly because the battle was not that desperate as yet and focusing a Borg Cubes attention ON EARTH is the last thing you want to do when you have other options.

And it's common sense to fire at targets of opportunity, which includes the Sphere, which wasn't exactly a small object, not ignore it. Space is big, no matter how StarTrek tends to depict it, hitting something on purpose is hard enough. Accidently hitting your own forces with guided space weapons is nearly impossible, or should be, unless you are claiming that their targetting really is that bad.

In the chaos of battle the most sophisticated guided weapons can easily harm targets, even if they don't HIT it. A simple near detonation could toast a damaged ship if not co-oridnated. Swarming the cube at close range is all that lets the ships survive that long, because each facing of the Cube holds 1/6th the ships firepower. If however you decide to break away, you could have three or more sides firing at you as they gain LOS.

Hell we don't even know the exact specification of Earths defences. For all we know they only HAVE those big missiles we saw in BOBW and had fired them all. They could only have phasers which have a shorter effective range and are far more prone to Friendly Fire accedents. This entire debate is mostly pointless bassed on this lack of knowledge, but regardless, I am unconvinced that it was IMPERATIVE that the surface bassed defences open fire in FC, they that had some down to the final line of defence, that it was all or nothing...

[Chris OFarrell]

Given the extreemly low damage to San Fran, I'm inclined to think that the damage we saw was just bleedthrough from the shield holding off the attack. Possibly the damage to Stafleet was from the initial salvo as the shields came up. Or possibly the Energy dampening weapon hitting the buildings, it didn't appear to have major energy problems.

For the record, its preaty clear the damage bill and casulaties are all but irrelevent to the Dominion. They were happy with the shock and fear the attack had generated.

WEYOUN and the Breen commander, THOT GOR, are
looking at an intelligence readout on a monitor.
Weyoun can barely contain his enthusiasm. A few
feet away, DAMAR is at another monitor.

WEYOUN
(pointing at the
readout)
There. Do you see that? The
news from Earth keeps getting
better. The Federation casualty
reports are being revised upward
once again.

The Breen issues some STATIC in response.

WEYOUN
Well put. The casualties are
merely a bonus. What matters is
that we've struck fear into the
hearts of our enemy and left them
feeling weak and vulnerable.
(very satisfied, to
Thot Gor)

WEYOUN (Cont'd)
General, please congratulate your
troops for us. They've done a
superb job. Don't you agree,
Damar?

DAMAR
(dry)
Superb.

The Breen STATICS at Damar.

DAMAR
It's just unfortunate that so few
of your ships survived the
assault.

WEYOUN
Leave it to you, Damar, to point
out the one cloud in the sky.

We all saw just how effective Starships are against Breen ships early in teh war in "The Changing Face of Evil" which makes it all but impossible Starships drove them off or inflicted the casulaties.

Bassed on this, I surmise that the Breen decloaked in Earth orbit and opened fire, most of the volley caught on shields that raised automaticly against such an event in wartime (we know shields can be set like this, having them set in war isn't unsurprising), caught some bleedthrough/casulaties/damage from the salvos, then started getting blown out of the sky by defences. They kept going until they staretd to get killd en mass, then recloaked and left.

[Kamakazie Sith]

I don't think the goal was to destroy the city. It was more of a pyschological attack then anything else....this is according the episode as well.

Think of the Dolittle raid....

Wouldn't annhilating San Fransisco have a much bigger psychological effect? After all, they sent those ships on a suicide mission, impotently spitballing the city seems hardly worth it when they could have destroyed worthwhile targets with those ships, rather than spending them to scare some people.

It certainly would. However, we have no idea of the types of ships involved nor their weaponry. We can only speculate....