Would scalosian water be a viable tactic

[mr friendly guy]

This was inspired after I heard that someone wrote a fan fic involving its use (not against the Empire though)

in it he had Tom Paris, as a member of Starfleet Special Forces, and he was sent to deal with a Borg Sphere. he did so by arming himself with a couple of Mek'Leths, and Drinking the Scalosian Water-that stuff that accelerated you to something like 1 billion tiomes normal speed-and he basically hacked and slashed every borg on the ship to pieces in minuets.

This is the description of the fan fic in question (not that I read it). Ignoring for a moment this sounds wank, will Scalosian water be a viable weapon for a few elite Federation ground troops or saboteurs (assuming the Federation can someone get a hold of some).

For those who don't remember, the Scalosians appeared in the TOS episode
wink of an eye

Essentially the water put you in a "hyper accelerated state". While Kirk was in this state everyone seemed to be standing still. Even a phaser blast looked ridiculously slow. The disadvantage is that in this state even minor injuries were deadly, so the trick is not to get hit.

[Solauren]

Assuming the Federation were to ever replicate it, it would be a massive, massive advantage in any person to person combat scenario.

I've often wondered why they haven't done that (in universe of course).

"Oh look, we're being boarded?" (3 security guards Juice up). "Okay, time to kick some ass"

They have an antidote after all...

Anyway....

The only problems I can see with this are powerful force users and concussion area attacks the water-users run into.

Just make sure they are not clumsy, and have patience to just into machines, and they might be able to win ground battles.

However, once the Empire figures this out, they'll just start slagging planets from orbit and be done with it.

[mr friendly guy]

The thing is, I don't think the Federatin can replicate it in large numbers. Which is why I thought that Scalosian water would have to be used sparingly.

I certainly don't think it would allow the Federation to suddenly win even if they were able to replicate it. My main thought was that it might allow them to win a few battles and maybe negotiate better surrender terms for the Federation. I am sure Palpatine would like his assassins to have the benefit of Scalosian water.

[Ghost Rider]

They get fragged becqause it does nothing to negate the horrific advantage the Empire has in space. Hell even on land the main problem is if someone uses a detonator, gases, or any other attack other then a blaster...he's fucked.

So they have a few speedy assassins, that's it. They still have to get to places where it'll be best served and somehow not do too many killings that the Empire wouldn't go "Fuck this backwater pile of ingrates" and slaughter them from orbit.

[Ted C]

Leaving aside all the realism problems from that episode...

As Ghost Rider noted, getting you Scalosian Water dosed troops to some place where they can do some good is going to be the main problem. You can't easily get them onto a Star Destroyer, and your own ship's aren't going to operated significantly faster no matter how fast someone operates the controls.

This doesn't even address the possibility that they can't replicate Scalosian Water; it's not like the galaxy isn't full of things that can't be replicated, and this seems to be a likely candidate. With only one viable source of this product, the Empire could largely eliminate the threat by just destroying Scalos. Given its bizarre properties, there's no reason to assume that the water is stable enough to be carried around in starships for weeks at a time without losing its efficacy.

[mr friendly guy]

What happens if we change the scenario and say that the Federation had already been occupied and the remnants adopted Darth Wong's plan of "terrorist" attacks.

The Federation remnants think the best chance they have of doing damage is to assassinate the Emperor himself. Given that the Empire is also dealing with Rebel Alliance, there is a chance that the blame would fall onto the Rebels instead of the Federation. Its a long shot, but for these "die hards" surrender is not an option, so any plan which is better than doing nothing will be considered.

This way you only need enough Scalosian water for a few agents.

Given this, would it be possible to assasinate Palpatine?

These are just a few difficulties.

1. Namely do any imperial ships in Federation space make it back to Imperial space. If not it may be best to aim at sneaking aboard a merchant civilian ship.

2. Finding out where the Emperor is. If the Federation is already conquered at this point, Imperial propaganda may reveal things like their capital is Coruscant.

3. Finding a ship heading towards Coruscant. Again if the Empire allows merchant ships, they may be the best bet.

4. Having it not being traced back to the Federation so the empire doesn't decide to frag it. I would have thought the Empire consider the Rebel Alliance a bigger threat than the Federation, hence more likely to suspect them. The assassins would then either have to live the rest of their lives in this hyperaccelerated state or kill themselves to make sure it never gets traced back. So far I have seen only Sloan who was that fanatical he would kill himself rather than give up information.

5. Having food to last them while in this hyperaccelerated state.

Given this new strategy, a) what are the chances of pulling this off (and i don't it can still be ridiculously low) b) if it succeeds what will happen to the Empire. Will it fractured apart with infighting like it need post RoTJ? And if it does, will it weaken Imperial holdings in Federation space?

[Darth Servo]

I doubt they can replicate it at all. They couldn't replicate some unusual rain water in "The Schizoid Man"

[Covenant]

This isn't nearly as useful as several other bits of Trek Wierdness. The incredibly fast juiced-up Redshirt assassin would still be limited by the fact that not every foe can be cut up. Running around with a knife won't help you beat an AT-AT of course, and even if you have a hand phaser of some variety you're still limited to the maximum rate of fire of the weapon. Since phasers are so incredibly weak already, being able to aim them somewhat better due to zippy hyperspeeding won't accomplish much.

Worse yet is if they deploy two drunken Gungans and a big Gungan Elephant to fight the Flash squad--those shields offer a degree of resistance, and I bet slamming into it at Kirkspeed would splatter your redshirts all over the place.

Seeing that both Star Trek and Star Wars are able to create forcefields that would not be easily visible to someone running around in juice-mode, the danger of ramming yourself into one and crushing a good deal of your body from the impact is pretty high.

So as a game-changing device, it's no good, since as stated it can't beat out the superiority the Empire has in terms of starships and ground armor. As an informational gathering tool, I could see it having some use, but sadly that doesn't even make up for being able to preform adequate intelligence operations in the first place.

[NecronLord]

you're still limited to the maximum rate of fire of the weapon.

Given that things they carry appear to be sped up with them - I don't notice clothes remaining in normal time - that may not be a problem. Carrying enough ammunition on the other hand...

[Darth Wong]

The reason they never used that stuff again in any future episode was that it was fucking retarded, and it's probably not considered part of the official continuity (reminder: "canon" in Star Trek does not necessarily mean "true"; RSA found this out when he accosted KevinK and other well-connected individuals at the startrek forums).

Think about it; even if you could somehow move and think at 1000x normal speed, the air around you isn't going to act any different, so you'd face enormous resistance to movement and you would produce shockwaves (ie- sonic boom) even if you could somehow move. You also couldn't see shit, because the lights would appear 1000x dimmer (remember that perception of light is based on POWER, which is energy per unit time). Friction between your feet and the ground would be utterly inadequate to sustain forward movement or maneuvering at that rate. One could pretty much go blind listing all of the reasons that the story of that episode was fucking stupid. It's probably best written off as a bad dream, like "Threshold" (it's actually worse, in terms of its logic).

[Darth Servo]

So say good-bye to "Timescape" as well.