Would the fluidic space portal work as a tactic?

[mr friendly guy]

Not sure if this has been done before, but a search function in this forum for fluidic space (searching for all terms) turned up nothing.

Just thinking about Mark S's fanfic, where the Republic has cornered the ST remnant fleets. Would it be practical if Seven of Nine teaches the Federation ships to "modify the main deflector to open up a portal which allows the Federation to escape into fluidic space" and allow the ships to escape.

This engineering procedure seems to not take very long to do, although we have only seen it work on an Intrepid class ship. It takes species 8472 some time to detect the intrusion, in which case it gives the Trek side some time to move elsewhere in fluidic space and then open a portal back into the AQ before being harassed.

My question is whether this fluidic space tactic would work as

1) a way to escape Imperial ships in hit and run attacks.

2) as a possible weapon in which the portal can be opened inside a base and torpedoes or bombs sent through. Actually since a starship can fit through the portal, why not just set the warp engines on overload and fly through the portal. I am willing to bet the insides of SW bases aren't quite as tough as the outside (without shields for one thing, and there is no reason to make you controls as tough as your hulls).

Now this is most likely going to come down to a matter of accuracy, it most probably will be difficult for a ST ship to open a portal right inside an imperial ship, which is why I am not suggesting it. However a large base, say the DS is a bigger target and hence easier to hit.

The other thing is jamming. If we assume jamming still works even when the ST ships are in fluidic space, would there be a reason for jamming all the time (obviously for this attack to work, the Federation will have to rely on it being a sneak attack).

The other thing is, what in our universe the Federation ships can detect while in fluidic space. Will they be able to detect objects in our universe, while in fluidic space or will they end up opening portals blindly (and not very accurately).

Thoughts

[Solauren]

And what happens when they figure out how to modify the captured ST ships to do the same thing?

[Cao Cao]

After repeated incursions I doubt it would take 8472 long to intercept intruders in their space as they'd presumably be on full alert, and I doubt they'd be very happy with a bunch of stragglers using their home as a hidey-hole.
To say nothing of when the Empire or whatever followed them in there.

Either that or it's the standard Evil Empire technique, for every nuisance hit and run attack, 1 Federation planet gets turned into ye olde asteroid belt. I doubt anyone other than the most deranged fanatic would continue under those circumstances, and they'd get killed off eventually.

[Bounty]

After repeated incursions I doubt it would take 8472 long to intercept intruders in their space as they'd presumably be on full alert, and I doubt they'd be very happy with a bunch of stragglers using their home as a hidey-hole.

8472 were actively planning an invasion of Earth. They agreed to indefinately postpone their plans on the condition that no Starfleet vessel would enter their realm again; they also have defenses against the converted nanoprobes.

If *any* Federation ship enters fluidic space they'll get blasted apart, no questions asked.

[mr friendly guy]

And what happens when they figure out how to modify the captured ST ships to do the same thing?

I imagine the Feds would hope that species 8472 engage the more powerful Imperial ships since they are the bigger threat, and in the confusion allows the Trek ships to get away and live to fight another day.

[ecintron]

Couldn't the imperial just lob a few concussion missile into Fluid space after the Feddies.. I image that the fluid that fills the space would transmit shock wave quite nicely, just image the effect that a semic charge would have...

[Batman]

Is there any evidence to indicate they can open portals anywhere but in empty space? Deep space if memory serves?
It should work as an escape mechanism provided they can go far enough without being noticed by the Biowank Aliens.

[OmegaGuy]

The 8472s would tear them apart if they tried it.

[NeoGoomba]

2) as a possible weapon in which the portal can be opened inside a base and torpedoes or bombs sent through. Actually since a starship can fit through the portal, why not just set the warp engines on overload and fly through the portal. I am willing to bet the insides of SW bases aren't quite as tough as the outside (without shields for one thing, and there is no reason to make you controls as tough as your hulls).

I had always thought something like that would be a decent offensive tactic, similar to using jump points as weapons in B5. I just wonder if the fluidic space rifts have as much "energy" behind them as the B5 jump points seem to have, causing almost instant destruction of ships caught in them.

[Teleros]

I had always thought something like that would be a decent offensive tactic, similar to using jump points as weapons in B5. I just wonder if the fluidic space rifts have as much "energy" behind them as the B5 jump points seem to have, causing almost instant destruction of ships caught in them.

Doesn't seem like it from watching the 8742 episodes, although to be fair B5 ships are a lot more easily destroyed than even Fed ships IMHO (area of effect nukes vs Black Star or Shadow & Vorlon fleets at end of the Shadow War anyone? Although according to Mike's pages the energy levels are much higher than say a Fed phaser, most of that won't hit the target ship).


As to whether or not 8742 will let them use it - well they might if they hear about the sheer power of the Republic / Empire - if they for whatever reason decide to drop by into fluidic space I don't give 8742 much of a fighting chance short of unlimbering the planet-killers on a huge scale, more realistically in my view they'd tell the Feds to clear off and deal with the extragalactic invaders themselves.
Assuming they let the Feds in however, my answers to your questions would be:

1) As a way to escape, yes. I doubt that the Imperial ships would have any means of tracking anything in fluidic space (at least not initially, after they discover it they might be able to). Spreading out an Imperial fleet so as to respond very rapidly to any emergence of Fed vessels would limit the effectiveness of this however.

2) Assuming they can control it precisely enough, yes. The problem is working out how the two dimensions relate - ie if I open a portal here, where will it be back in realspace? If not a base, then perhaps just a general area, assuming they decide to risk whatever collateral damage results from it. It'd also be amusing to see the Imperials throw something back if they open for long enough for that matter .

[ecintron]

I had always thought something like that would be a decent offensive tactic, similar to using jump points as weapons in B5. I just wonder if the fluidic space rifts have as much "energy" behind them as the B5 jump points seem to have, causing almost instant destruction of ships caught in them.

Doesn't seem like it from watching the 8742 episodes, although to be fair B5 ships are a lot more easily destroyed than even Fed ships IMHO (area of effect nukes vs Black Star or Shadow & Vorlon fleets at end of the Shadow War anyone? Although according to Mike's pages the energy levels are much higher than say a Fed phaser, most of that won't hit the target ship).


As to whether or not 8742 will let them use it - well they might if they hear about the sheer power of the Republic / Empire - if they for whatever reason decide to drop by into fluidic space I don't give 8742 much of a fighting chance short of unlimbering the planet-killers on a huge scale, more realistically in my view they'd tell the Feds to clear off and deal with the extragalactic invaders themselves.
Assuming they let the Feds in however, my answers to your questions would be:

1) As a way to escape, yes. I doubt that the Imperial ships would have any means of tracking anything in fluidic space (at least not initially, after they discover it they might be able to). Spreading out an Imperial fleet so as to respond very rapidly to any emergence of Fed vessels would limit the effectiveness of this however.

2) Assuming they can control it precisely enough, yes. The problem is working out how the two dimensions relate - ie if I open a portal here, where will it be back in realspace? If not a base, then perhaps just a general area, assuming they decide to risk whatever collateral damage results from it. It'd also be amusing to see the Imperials throw something back if they open for long enough for that matter .

Spreading out the in imperial fleet wouldn't be a problem, when the firepower of a simple System patrol boat would be more than enought to stop an attack by the federation craft/

The tactic buys nothing for the federation in light of the fact that Hyperdrive allow you to jump within distants of a planetary diameter of a target planet, the more SW defenses are design with this in mind, everything from obrital station to defenses satellites., to system patrol craft.

Even the firepower of privately own vessel far excess that of most federation craft. Image Jabba the Hutt had several bountry hunter as employee, just the craft of One would easily out gun any federation ship.

As a means of escape, the federation ship would have to be able to get back to the rift before defending craft can destroy it, and at impulse this would be a problem due to superior acceleration of SW vessels.

Also the rift itself would show up as a quantum singularities which the broad range of imperial sensor would detect.

So there would be no element of surprise and even if there was there would be no means of using it.

[PREDATOR490]

There isnt any indication of how big Fludic Space is but in Scorpian Species 8472 has thousands of ships deployed in Borg Space along that "corridor" that Voyager wanted to use.
Additionally, if this is made of "fluid" then wouldnt that "spill" into "normal" space every time they open a rift ?

I doubt that S8472 would help the Federation unless they end up on the wrong side of the same bad guys as the Federation. Even then, S8472 are a highly xenophobic race who dont take kindly to people invading their space.

The Borg invaded and the retalitation was a plan to "purge" the entire galaxy and they were stomping all over the Borg with extreme prejudice.
Overall, S8472 dont have much of a stomach for losses since Voyager only had to give them a slap in the face to make them retreat. Another thing is that in the Unimatrix episode one of the Borg ships was supposed to be "patrolling the edge of S8472 space"

Anyone who attempted to enter S8472 space would most likely be attacked by them.
Additionally, a massive force of S8472 ships were in normal space during Scorpian thus it may be that their space is far more heavily defended than Voyager would have encountered.

As for not being able to detect them... any incursion into Fludic space was supposed to give off a wake which allowed S8472 to detect them. Voyager would give off a small one... but a ship like a SD or larger would cause a massive shockwave and probably result in a swift response from S8472.

Wether or not S8472 could do any damage to a SW fleet would be interesting. They are supposed to be telepathic to some degree.

As for the Federation, or any other race... they would get wiped out by S8472 for trespassing and in the off chance that they dont, its unlikely that the return would be worth the cost or risk.

The most basic tactic a SW force could do is to send bombs through to Fludic space to cause massive shockwaves or modify a bio weapon that integrates itself into the fluid.

[glass]

Maybe the best aproach would be to deliberately allow a fluidic-equiped ship to be captured and hope the Imperials went and poked the hornets nest on their own.


glass.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Maybe the best approach is not to necro dead threads?

[Ghost Rider]

Or maybe inform Mods about necroed threads....

Lock.