How would the U.S.S. Vengeance fare...

[Eternal_Freedom]

What? On what do you base that statement?

He's probably basing it on the existence of the debris field around the planet.

This. I distinctly remember seeing a huge debris field with some chunks that looked like part of a larger shattered sphere.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Yeah that was meant to be Praxis, I'd assume. It was a moon (about 1/10th the size of the planet) with half of it missing, spread out around it in a massive debris field.

Presumably when the 47 Klingon ships were blown up by the Narada, the Klingons went on a massive rebuild effort which triggered the destruction early.

edit:

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2014 ... s_2259.jpg

[Sidewinder]

According to Memory Alpha's article "Khan Noonien Singh (alternate reality)", Khan himself destroyed Praxis, on Adm Marcus' orders.

The comic book series Star Trek: Khan establishes Khan's history subsequent to the divergence of the timeline but prior to his encounter with the Enterprise. The Section 31 starship Vanguard discovers the Botany Bay and takes custody of Khan. Quickly using their databanks to determine his identity prior to awakening him, Admiral Marcus orders that Khan's face and voice be reconstructed from their Indian origins to a more northern European origin and has his memory blocked with the intent of convincing Khan that he is John Harrison, a Starfleet researcher in London's Kelvin Memorial Archive, who lost his memories in an accident during a failed mission to Qo'nos. He is given the task of helping advise Section 31 on possible enhancements to Starfleet weapon, shield and propulsion technology (which is to be incorporated aboard the USS Vengeance) as well as taking on a mission to destroy Praxis with the help of a portable transporter he designed and built. The mission is a success (explaining the destroyed moon seen in orbit of the Klingon homeworld in the film), but, in the process, Khan rediscovers his memories of his true identity.

Should we grant Marcus title "EPIC FAIL" for turning an event that could've paved the way towards peaceful Federation-Klingon relations, to an event GUARANTEED to do the opposite?

[DaveJB]

On the one hand, the Federation-Klingon peace treaty in the prime universe depended on a very specific set of circumstances including Gorkon becoming chancellor, the destruction of Praxis, an implied military build-up in the 2280s in response to the Genesis Project, and - if you go by the novels and video games - the destruction of the Klingons' other main energy facility in a civil war a year before TUC, so you could make the case that the same peace treaty coming about in the NuTrek timeline would be a very remote possibility in any case. On the other, I can only imagine Spock Prime doing the mother of all facepalms when he found out what Marcus had done.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

To be fair regarding the warheads detonating inside the Vengeance, a sizable portion of the internal space within the torpedoes was dedicated to the cryotubes and not antimatter- so the yield demonstrated was far less than what a torpedo of that size would have released.

[Havok]

Yeah, the Defiant was built in response to the Borg, it still go it's ass handed to it.

I don't know exactly why everyone is discounting the E. It intimidated Romulan Warbirds on a regular basis and was always shown as a tide turner in DS9.

And I'm sorry but 90 years of shield advancement, torpedo advancement, armor advancement... it's big but it's still just a really over sized Constitution. Or maybe just an over sized Excelsior.

[Lord MJ]

Yeah, the Defiant was built in response to the Borg, it still go it's ass handed to it.

To be fair, the Defiant was designed to be deployed in a battle group against Borg cubes. A whole fleet of Defiants was supposed to be constructed. But the design flaws put the ship in mothballs, until Sisko pulled it out to use against the Dominion.

Would've been nice to see what attack wings of Defiant class ships could do to enemy formations.

[Purple]

Yeah, the Defiant was built in response to the Borg, it still go it's ass handed to it.

To be fair, the Defiant was designed to be deployed in a battle group against Borg cubes. A whole fleet of Defiants was supposed to be constructed. But the design flaws put the ship in mothballs, until Sisko pulled it out to use against the Dominion.

Would've been nice to see what attack wings of Defiant class ships could do to enemy formations.

Design flaws?

[Borgholio]

Design flaws?

It was too powerful for its size. They made several references to the ship shaking itself apart at full power trials.

[Purple]

Design flaws?

It was too powerful for its size. They made several references to the ship shaking itself apart at full power trials.

That is not really a major design flaw though. I mean, modern tanks have the same problems in terms of power where if they run at full speed they tend to cause disproportionate wear on the tracks and driving gear. The solution is to simply limit the top speed. It can be solved by applying a sticky note to the bridge consoles. (preferably an explosion proof one though)

[Borgholio]

Agreed, but the Federation is commonly incapable of thinking up simple or easy solutions. If it can't be polarized, remodulated or recalibrated...then it simply won't work for them.

My feelings are that if the powerplant was too strong for what the ship could use...then like you said, limit power output during normal situations. During combat if it STILL put out too much power, then being a warship...the most reasonable thing to do is strap on more guns to use that extra power for something con...erm...DEStructive.

[Lord MJ]

They eventually fixed the problems so that the Defiant was combat worthy.

It still couldn't travel at Warp 9+ without shaking itself apart. But they did get it to the point that it could actually fight. This was explained in one of the Mirror universe episodes.

[Tribble]

All very true, but don't forget that in an initial encounter the Borg are far from being unstable juggernauts. Picard only started firing when the Borg Cube had beamed over, downloaded some contents from the E-Ds computer, locked the E-D in a tractor beam, drained the shields and cut a section out of the hull. And even then, with just 3 full power phaser shots the E-D damaged 20% of the Cube.

What would have happened if the E-D had started firing the moment the Borg tried beaming a drone over and kept firing until one of the ships were destroyed? At the very least I think the E-D would have put up a hell of a better fight, and it might have even stood a chance at winning (though the odds would still be in the Cube's favour due to its sheer size).

Admiral Marcus strikes me as the type of guy who would have the Vengeance go in with all guns-a-blazing until one ship blows up. IMO the Vengeance probably wouldn't win, but it would put up a hell of a lot better fight against the Borg than what we saw in Q-Who, even though it is less advanced than the E-D.

And yes, it's true that the Defiant could not take a Borg Cube down on it's own. But don't forget that the Defiant was designed at a time where the Borg had already adapted to Fed tech via battle and Picard's experience. It held up very well considering that and the fact that it supposedly it fought the Cube all the way from the Typhoon Sector to Sector 001. In BOBW most Fed starships were literally destroyed within seconds.

[Lord Revan]

I wonder if the Defiant-class was even meant to take down a cube by itself, it could be that it was meant to be used as a heavy hitter of a fleet, so that ships that could take the hts from a the cube better would draw the attention of the borg before the Defiant would swoop in hitting the cube hard before retreating to avoid retaliation from the cube.

[Gandalf]

I always assumed that the Defiant was just a ship designed to shoot a lot of torpedoes without risking too many lives because of low staffing requirements.

[Tribble]

I don't think it was expected that the Defiant would actually be able to take out a Borg Cube all on its own. However, it was probably designed to try and duke it out with one, even if it was without support.

The Defiant was small and maneuverable, so that it would be harder for the Borg to hit. Even the E-D was able to avoid a Borg beam by wallowing to port, and you can see in STFC that the Cube had to fire multiple times at the Defiant before scoring a single hit. The Defiant had some of the heaviest weapons available. And perhaps most importantly, the Defiant had ablative armour. It didn't rely solely on shields for protection. In STFC the Borg Cube was taking out various ships with one shot, while the Defiant was able to survive two direct hits despite previous damage.

[Borgholio]

Defiants were designed to attack in swarms. A fleet of a few dozen defiants would have done some damage to a Borg cube.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Admiral Marcus strikes me as the type of guy who would have the Vengeance go in with all guns-a-blazing until one ship blows up. IMO the Vengeance probably wouldn't win, but it would put up a hell of a lot better fight against the Borg than what we saw in Q-Who, even though it is less advanced than the E-D.

Things is, if we're postulating this fight as a first-contact meeting, then the Vengeance actually destroying or crippling a cube might make things worse in the long run, as the Borg would see the Federation as a more serious threat and send more ships (as in, more than one cube).

[Tribble]

Right, but the same thing would have happened if the E-D had successfully won it's first encounter and destroyed the Cube. I'm just pointing out that in a first-contact scenario the Vengeance under Marcus would probably have done a lot better than the E-D did under Picard.

I wonder how effective ramming would be against a Cube, as I don't seem to recall any Fed ships actually carrying it out. Would the Borg be able to adapt to something like that? If not, than an effective strategy could be to simply build starship-sized missiles filled with anti-matter, give them enough armour/shielding to survive the weapons fire en route, and just ram them into the Borg ship at high velocity. For example, I wonder what kind of damage the Cardassian Dreadnaught missile would do to a Cube. I imagine the Cube wouldn't be very healthy after having several of those fired at it. I would strip out all the extraneous weapons to give it an even bigger payload. After all, all it really needs to do is hit the Cube at max speed and explode.

[Borgholio]

Had I been in command of the fleet at Wolf 359, with what I know now, here's what I would have done.

1. Take the 3 or 4 smallest and least-powerful (least useful) ships and fit them as fireships (giant floating bombs) and set to ram the Borg cube at warp speed by remote control.
2. If the cube somehow manages to survive that, swarm the thing with the entire fleet. All weapons set on full computer control so we can achieve maximum rate of fire, target accuracy, and automatic rotation of weapon frequencies if needed. Friendly fire be dammed.

The swarm, combined with 3 or 4 ship-sized bombs, should do in a cube quite thoroughly.

[Tribble]

And for future Borg attacks, I would just build a large stockpile of "Dreadnought" type missiles and fire them at any Cube which approaches until it's destroyed. Minus the secondary weapons (like the disrupters and quantum torpedoes) so that the missiles could have a bigger payload. And keep the fleet in reserve to finish off anything that survives, though I doubt that would be necessary.