TheDarkling wrote:Illuminatus Primus: Again after a year the bulk of their fleet is 3000 ships, thats a fair guess at their fleet size at the beggining of the war.
No it isn't. After a year of war, the YV already were defending a vast quantity of territory, which they were forced to defend. Note that, even with the casualties they take from that time until they attack Coruscant, they seem to GAIN forces in the interrim. That is likely the result of calling up the strategic reserves, which Destiny's Way describes as being totally depleted.
On the Infiltrator issue - this gives the Feds time to learn of the Vong presence before they attack, as I showed in one of he previous threads on this subject this wouldnt be so easy (mainly due to Fed sensors, Transporters and he big ol' database of everyone).
The UFP couldn't even detect the Founders on Earth itself. There were only six of them, if we can trust the changeling O'Brien, but even with all of those resources they still could not do it. YV ooglith masquers work in a totally different manner that SF is not prepared for. And do you know how easy it is to infiltrate a Federation installation? What if Garak had been a Cardassian spy? What if Quark had been a spy the whole time? NO ONE WOULD HAVE KNOWN. Odo reports thievery is a fairly common occurence, and rightfully points out several lapses of security on the Enterprise itself. The first-contact scenario protocalls that are used on UFP starships are a joke, and their incessent negotiations with others are laughable in terms of their ability to detect and bar infiltration. The YV wouldn't even need to pose as being humans or some other species in order to infiltrate the NR! They could just sit there and plant listening devices all throughout UFP ships. Further, the changeling Bashir was not detected until he actualy tried to destroy Bajor and the majority of the UFP fleet. YV operatives are known to kill members of the enemy crew and then assume their forms (ref. Vector Prime). If Bashir--one of the leading officers on DS9--went without being adequately scanned to determine that he was, in fact, a changeling, imagine how easy it would be for the YV!
Master of Ossus: You were talking about Section 31 - I explained about that situation, I wasnt talking about the Chiss - wasnt that clear how I said they were experimenting on a non humaniod race?
I was comparing the Chiss and the Section 31 bio-weapons team. After comparing the two, it is found that the weapon the Chiss came up with in a matter of months is superior in all respects to the weapon that Section 31 came up with in the space of years--despite having willing participants to experiment upon.
The Warf Strafe has been gone over and over and I have explained the DS9 incidents however n one is going to be convinced so lets just drop it.
Fine. I'd love to see your evidence for a possible warp strafe, but if you can't back up your claim then you can drop it without cost.
When I said faster meditech I was refering to R&D on bioweapnos and ways to counter them etc, in ground combat it wont really matter because the Feds will be in a rather large amount of trouble (transporters will come in handy though).
I see. I misunderstood. I'm curious as to the reasons why transporters have never been seen used in ST combat, before, but I digress. I'd like you to present evidence of your claim that the UFP has faster R&D capabilities on bioweapons and the like than the Chiss, Empire, or NR.
As an aside however Bashir does his medical duties in a fight and doesnt charge around with a phaser.
Oh, is THAt what he was doing during the Klingon invasion. I must have missed that scene.
The Vong dont always pull up in orbit and waste the planet, during the first 2 years of the invasion they occupy worlds and begin forming the population into slaves far more often then simlpy firing off bioweapons.
True, but they only engage populations that are incapable of mounting potentially dangerous resistance. In other words, they enslave when the net-gain of doing so is greater than the costs associated with a ground-campaign. Bio-weapons are used on potentially dangerous targets, or worlds that do not have populations to enslave.
As for the Federation having fewer starships - this is true however the NR never deployed it ships, some systems only had 2 or 3 frigates fighting to delay the enemy, the Feds could raise fair more, not to mention planetary defense would come in handy (something which many of the Rim worlds didnt display).
Okay, so how could SF raise more ships to defend each world than the NR, even though they are hampered by slower FTL travel? The NR's main fleets were not engaging the YV, although the YV were attempting to engage the NR's main fleets. Similarly, even if SF tried to engage the YV's fleets with their largest fleets, the YV would have the choice of whether or not to attack. Their quicker FTL travel would allow them to attack or flee, with the UFP being unable to respond quickly enough with warp-drives to stop them from doing so and engage them.
Yorik Coral is as has been said (Ender correct me if im wrong here) calcium more or less and is often described as rock.
On skips even the low power shots (from XJ's) can get past the hulls in some cases and full power shots have gone in one side and come out the other at least once or twice.
Hmmm.... Ender, what was your source on the composition of Yorik Coral? If you don't have a quote, I'll settle for paraphrasing and a book title, but I've always envisioned Yorik Coral as looking non-calciferous.
Darkling, the fact that XJ shots can get through a coral-skipper does not have much bearing on the strength of Yorik Coral. We don't know how thick the hull of such ships are. We also know that Yorik Coral on much larger ships has withstood MTL, and possibly even HTL fire for limited amounts of time, and we can guestimate the thickness of that coral (from the thickness of the ship that Jaina cuts through in SbS) as being two meters for a frigate-sized ship. That's a hell of a lot of material, but it's standing up to gigatons of energy.
The Feds dont include fighters in ship counts anymore than Nav deflectors can take high power lasers all day long (you have be asked to produce support for that argument before and have never produced).
Ummm... yes they do. They muster a 600 ship fleet WITH FIGHTERS to retake DS9. They count Jem H'adar fighters among the 1200 they think opposed them. This actually makes sense, from their point of view, because a JH bug is enough to fight a Centaur-class frigate and have a reasonable chance of surviving, and a Centaur is a small capital ship, instead of a fighter.
The Vong will be outnumbered, again 1 year into the war putting together a fleet of 3000 ships forced them to withdraw support from their most important project (the worldship) as well as many other positions - the Feds have more than 3000 ships, estimation for the FKR fleet clocks in at 20,000 ish not to mention planetary defense and possibly planetary defense fleets (not iron clad but implied during a TNG episode).
Hello, Unsubstantiated Claim, we meet again! Darkling, do you realize that the 3000 ships a year into the war with the NR is totally non-applicable to the UFP unless you can demonstrate that the war would last more than a year (dubious, as the YV were able to hold substantial territory with their forces--demonstrating a spectacular initial strength), and that the UFP could do as much damage to the YV as the NR did? You have failed to do either. Because of the nature of the claim (that they would be outnumbered) you must then demonstrate that the UFP would be able to do this without taking so many casualties that their sum-total dropped below the 3000 YV capital ships.
With regard to destinies way - no I havent read it im on star by star at the moment (I had to wait for them to release the paperback since no one had the hard cover) but during the first couple of years (as you have said - this is what is most relevant here) Nem Yim is the cheif heretic and I believe thats what Ender was coveying - that she would be needed to really pull out the stops to fight the transporter (or someone like her) not to mention the fact that I havent seen anyone explain how the Vong will adapt except that they will because they are the Borg.... sorry I meant Vong when I hear unsupported claims of uber adaption I usually think Borg
.
Why would the Vong need to adapt? They've conquered tracts of territory that dwarf the size of the UFP, and had better technology, to boot. Even if we just use the Core Worlds, where the NR actually began using its main fleet to engage the YV, they've still conquered more than 8000 lightyears worth of space, or about 3 SW SECTORS. They did so virtually without adaptation. The idea that they would need to adapt to a less developed and smaller organization is somewhat difficult to grasp.