Would thaleron devices work against SW ground forces

[Junghalli]

It has a rediculous power-up time, agreed, but wasn't it supposed to be used while the ship was cloaked?

Either that or the ship was originally intended to operate as part of a larger squadron, with escort ships keeping attacking enemies off its back while it charged up*. I tend to think it would have to be one or the other, because the long charge up time would be a really huge liability otherwise.

*This would mean Shinzon's attack plan was pretty stupid, but that isn't really a terribly shocking idea.

[mr friendly guy]

I thought the Scimitar relied on it being cloaked while it fired up its thaleron emitter. This would compensate for its ridiculous power up time.

[chitoryu12]

So it has such a good cloaking device that despite the extremely long time it would take to wipe out the planet, nobody would even notice it?

[Bounty]

So it has such a good cloaking device that despite the extremely long time it would take to wipe out the planet, nobody would even notice it?

That was the idea. Cloaks in Trek have *always* had limitations (power in TOS, emissions in TNG) but for Nemesis the writers decided to make the Scimitar that much more wanked by making it's claok "perfect", howeverthehell that works.

[chitoryu12]

Still, how could they miss the ship, even after it starts firing?

[Bounty]

Still, how could they miss the ship, even after it starts firing?

You've already put more thought into the script than the writers themselves.

[chitoryu12]

Still, how could they miss the ship, even after it starts firing?

You've already put more thought into the script than the writers themselves.

Why thank you, it's my pleasure.

[PREDATOR490]

That was the idea. Cloaks in Trek have *always* had limitations (power in TOS, emissions in TNG) but for Nemesis the writers decided to make the Scimitar that much more wanked by making it's claok "perfect", howeverthehell that works.

I thought the ship used multiple cloaks since it was able to disable sections and fire while cloaked. I used to wonder what would happen if a ship had multiple cloaks and if they could be broken up into sections with the ones over the weapon bays configured so they would drop just as its being fired then come up again. I was under the impression thats what the Scimitar was doing.

[Darth Servo]

Still, how could they miss the ship, even after it starts firing?

You've already put more thought into the script than the writers themselves.

Why thank you, it's my pleasure.

Of course you have to understand that the compliment wasn't saying all that much.

[Junghalli]

Still, how could they miss the ship, even after it starts firing?

The only time we actually saw a thalaron weapon fire was the small version in the Romulan Senate chamber. The actual firing wasn't that long. After powering up it just shot out this big column of green light which hit the ceiling and faded, seeming to possibly leave some kind of airborne particulate matter behind afterwards. There's no hard evidence that its big brother in the Scimitar would need longer.

As for after it fired I presume the plan was to run away under cloak before the enemy space units could react. It's supposed to only need one shot to kill everybody on the planet.

[chitoryu12]

You've already put more thought into the script than the writers themselves.

Why thank you, it's my pleasure.

Of course you have to understand that the compliment wasn't saying all that much.

It is, when you consider that not much was put into the plot to begin with.

[Darth Wong]

As for after it fired I presume the plan was to run away under cloak before the enemy space units could react. It's supposed to only need one shot to kill everybody on the planet.

It's interesting that there was no evidence of a test-firing of this weapon anywhere. No mysterious reports of a planet where all the inhabitants were turned to dust but the structures remained. How do they even know for sure that it works at that scale if they never tried test-firing it?

[mr friendly guy]

Still, how could they miss the ship, even after it starts firing?

Presumably by then it will be too late and most people on Earth would be dead. The Scimitar can then quickly move out the way before defenses back track the source of the Thaleron burst (ala ST 6 strategy with the General Chang's ship). Whether the writers thought of this though, is another matter.

As for after it fired I presume the plan was to run away under cloak before the enemy space units could react. It's supposed to only need one shot to kill everybody on the planet.

It's interesting that there was no evidence of a test-firing of this weapon anywhere. No mysterious reports of a planet where all the inhabitants were turned to dust but the structures remained. How do they even know for sure that it works at that scale if they never tried test-firing it?

Obviously with a holodeck simulation.

[Junghalli]

It's interesting that there was no evidence of a test-firing of this weapon anywhere. No mysterious reports of a planet where all the inhabitants were turned to dust but the structures remained. How do they even know for sure that it works at that scale if they never tried test-firing it?

Trekverse seems to have no shortage of rarely visited worlds, how hard would it actually be to hush up such a test? Especially as it's a universe where the different empires have well-defined borders just like modern terrestrial nation-states.

Granted, I wouldn't be too suprised if Shinzon never bothered with such a test, and just assumed it would work. Given the way the Scimitar was presented as his "secret weapon" it would have problematic to say the least, and we know he's overconfident as hell. Look at the way he dithered capturing Picard until the very last minute, and then didn't bother taking an escort.

[Darth Servo]

It's interesting that there was no evidence of a test-firing of this weapon anywhere. No mysterious reports of a planet where all the inhabitants were turned to dust but the structures remained. How do they even know for sure that it works at that scale if they never tried test-firing it?

Trekverse seems to have no shortage of rarely visited worlds, how hard would it actually be to hush up such a test? Especially as it's a universe where the different empires have well-defined borders just like modern terrestrial nation-states.

Granted, I wouldn't be too suprised if Shinzon never bothered with such a test, and just assumed it would work. Given the way the Scimitar was presented as his "secret weapon" it would have problematic to say the least, and we know he's overconfident as hell. Look at the way he dithered capturing Picard until the very last minute, and then didn't bother taking an escort.

Its standard Trek practice to go from theory to full scale implementation. Anyone remember the soliton wave?

[chitoryu12]

Still, how could they miss the ship, even after it starts firing?

Presumably by then it will be too late and most people on Earth would be dead. The Scimitar can then quickly move out the way before defenses back track the source of the Thaleron burst (ala ST 6 strategy with the General Chang's ship). Whether the writers thought of this though, is another matter.

It took seven minutes to charge up enough to destroy a ship. We have no way of proving that a single shot would kill "most people on Earth." Unless, of course, hardly anyone even lives on the planet anymore, but we also have no proof of that.

[Junghalli]

It took seven minutes to charge up enough to destroy a ship. We have no way of proving that a single shot would kill "most people on Earth." Unless, of course, hardly anyone even lives on the planet anymore, but we also have no proof of that.

Other people on this thread have already presented theories on the charge-up vulnerability. Most likely either it's meant to charge up while cloaked or it's meant to operate as part of a larger squadron, with escort ships to protect it while it's in its vulnerable charge-up phase.
No, we haven't actually seen it kill everyone on an inhabited planet but that was what it was designed to do, and none of the characters had any trouble believing it was capable of it. The long charge up time is easily rationalized by the weapon only having one setting, which would have been immense overkill against the Enterprise. It's pretty obvious it was designed as a strategic weapon: it's way too slow and cumbersome to be used at all against any ship that wasn't helpless.

[mr friendly guy]

It took seven minutes to charge up enough to destroy a ship. We have no way of proving that a single shot would kill "most people on Earth." Unless, of course, hardly anyone even lives on the planet anymore, but we also have no proof of that.

The point is Shinzon thought it would kill everyone on Earth (whether it would is another matter). However he planned his attack around this premise, hence a ridiculous charge up time isn't such a liability when you have an undetectable cloak and only need one shot to do the deed.

It would have made more sense if he took some escorts as well, but thats another matter.

[Darth Servo]

No, we haven't actually seen it kill everyone on an inhabited planet but that was what it was designed to do, and none of the characters had any trouble believing it was capable of it.

Which proves nothing since these people are morons and their description of how the thing was supposed to work was a joke.

Microscopic amount of radiation? tee-hee-hee.

[Junghalli]

Which proves nothing since these people are morons and their description of how the thing was supposed to work was a joke.

Yeah but IMHO you can only take that so far before you loose anything remotely resembling believability.
Are we seriously to believe that this entire undoubtedly super-expensive (considering how big and wanky it is it would have to be) warship was built without anyone on the design team even bothering to consider the question of whether or not it would actually work?

Microscopic amount of radiation? tee-hee-hee.

I figured that meant it was fatal in really tiny dosages. But yeah, that's pretty funny.

[Darth Wong]

Which proves nothing since these people are morons and their description of how the thing was supposed to work was a joke.

Yeah but IMHO you can only take that so far before you loose anything remotely resembling believability.

Are you seriously suggesting that Trek is more believable if we always take character dialogue at face value?

[Ted C]

Are we seriously to believe that this entire undoubtedly super-expensive (considering how big and wanky it is it would have to be) warship was built without anyone on the design team even bothering to consider the question of whether or not it would actually work?

How often has the Federation gone from a theory in someone's head to a full-size implementation without any intermediate testing (like in "New Ground", for example)?

Should we really expect the Romulans/Remans to be any less idiotic in their engineering practices?

[Isolder74]

Often. But at least with the Genesis Device they actually took the time to have a test and did labratory testing before building the full version of the device.

The Movie opens with them basically ready to test a full version of the device. So they had a hand built Prototype with it not even ready to be put into full scale production.

[Darth Servo]

Yeah but IMHO you can only take that so far before you loose anything remotely resembling believability.

Why? Other sci-fi universes (like SW) have very little dialogue about their tech yet that doesn't stop us from figuring out what they can and cannot do.

Are we seriously to believe that this entire undoubtedly super-expensive (considering how big and wanky it is it would have to be) warship was built without anyone on the design team even bothering to consider the question of whether or not it would actually work?

Yes, since that is PRECISELY what the Fed scientists did with the Soliton wave (New Ground) and memory altering medical procedures (Pen Pals). Wesley was allowed to play around with nanobots (Evolution). Then there was the dangerous warp field experiment on the heavily populated E-D (Remember Me). Never mind all the times they beamed down into hostile environments without so much as an environmental protection suit.

Microscopic amount of radiation? tee-hee-hee.

I figured that meant it was fatal in really tiny dosages. But yeah, that's pretty funny.

It also proves that the description of weapon was meaningless at best and utterly retarded at worst.

[Darth Servo]

Additions to Trek ridiculous abandon of any real kind of testing:

In "Ethics" Dr. Russel goes straight from holosimulations to full experimentation on humans.

In "Force of Nature" the Federation Science Council dismisses the scientist's warnings about the harmful effects of warp drive on the fabric of space-time even though they could have EASILY tested them. They obviously didn't even bother.