The Omega Solution

[Baffalo]

This was an idea floating in my head after watching a warhammer 40k video and it goes something like this.

Say the Federation encounters a species that is hyper-aggressive to the point even Klingons seem tame. They have a belief that every other species in the galaxy is inferior, and must be exterminated. They've bombarded worlds to glass, slaughtered colonies and made displays of the corpses, and take sadistic joy in broadcasting torture sessions of prisoners.

The United Federation of Planets and Klingon Empire fight the aliens, leading to a total war on both sides due to Federation and Klingon soldiers killing themselves to avoid capture, and vice versa. The war drags on for years until only the alien home world remains. Invasion is unlikely to do anything but lead to horrendous casualties, and committing genocide isn't going to win over the Federation Council or public at large. The Klingons would love to go killing and it's only a lack of troops that keeps them from doing so. They'd need millions of troops to land, and that would take a long time.

And so the Omega Solution is offered: destroy key infrastructure from orbit to prevent further ship construction, blast the planet with EMP weapons and other anti-tech munitions, then leave a few Omega particles that will become unstable. Trap the aliens on their own planet without the ability to use warp and threaten their neighbors again without a permenant peacekeeping force in space to stop new ship construction.

Is this a viable idea or no?

[Lord Revan]

Omega Molecules are too unrelible and would screw over more then just the target planet. IIRC they effectively destroy subspace when they go pop on such major area that using one would probably never the approval from the Federation Council or at least genocide might be easier to get thru the council then intentional use of unstable Omega Molecules.

I mean the standing UFP policy for the Borg is to shoot on sight (essentially) so it's not unheard of for the Federation to declare a species to such a big threat that peaceful means are considers a waste of effort and if you encounter then you shoot to kill.

[FedRebel]

Aside from Voyager's encounter with Omega, there is no means to stabilize the molecule long enough to weaponize...and Janeway's log stated that she destroyed all notes and research collected from Seven's chamber.

Even that, one molecule can disrupt a parsec radi worth of subspace. And it's implied that the more Omega exponentially magnifies that.

You'd have to build a facility in the warzone, well in reach of the enemy's ability to seize, just so that you are able to synthesize the molecule. A project that'd take several months to a year if not longer (build the lab in a warzone, constantly defend against incursion, etc.) On top of that the Omega molecule isn't made by Betty Crocker, you are going to need lots of precursor material, lots of trial an error...oh and the UFP made it a policy to destroy all research relating to manufacture so teams have to start square one.

If it comes to it, dust off 'General Order 24'.

[Lord Revan]

Well it should say something about how dangerous the Omega Molecules are seen by starfleet that Omega Directive overrides the Prime Directive (in fact it's the only known starfleet directive known to do so), seeing how starfleet sees the Prime Directive as practically divine in importance it should say a lot that you're allowed to intentionally break the Prime Directive to fulfill the Omega Directive.

Also a parsec is roughly 3.5 ly and the closest start to Sol (Proxima Centauri) is roughly a parsec away(about 4 ly so little over 1 pc), also I suspect that disrupting radii isn't exact but rather "in most cases the disruption radii is roughly 1 parsec across" with a range of variance attached to those numbers.

[Prometheus Unbound]

This was an idea floating in my head after watching a warhammer 40k video and it goes something like this.

Say the Federation encounters a species that is hyper-aggressive to the point even Klingons seem tame. They have a belief that every other species in the galaxy is inferior, and must be exterminated. They've bombarded worlds to glass, slaughtered colonies and made displays of the corpses, and take sadistic joy in broadcasting torture sessions of prisoners.

The Dominion, essentially, on bath salts?

The United Federation of Planets and Klingon Empire fight the aliens, leading to a total war on both sides due to Federation and Klingon soldiers killing themselves to avoid capture, and vice versa. The war drags on for years until only the alien home world remains. Invasion is unlikely to do anything but lead to horrendous casualties, and committing genocide isn't going to win over the Federation Council or public at large. The Klingons would love to go killing and it's only a lack of troops that keeps them from doing so. They'd need millions of troops to land, and that would take a long time.

So there's been a galactic war for years, at least an entire empire is down to one planet, so trillions have been killed in this conflict. Soldiers commit suicide rather than be taken prisoner by these people. It's literally a fight to the death?

And the Federation council isn't going to be won over? Gene Roddenberry may turn in his grave, but I think the Federation would indeed wipe them out, if that was the choice. Hell, they are willing to do with the Borg - Picard was under orders to destroy the collective if he had a chance.

Yeah - I think the Feds would do it, push comes to shove. And the Klingons would hardly object. And as someone pointed out, they have General Order 24 - it exists as an order to eradicate all life on a planet.

Also the Klingons destroyed the entire biosphere of a planet in a few seconds in "The Chase" and Sisko has done it to the Maquis - it doesn't take "a lot" to do it. The Klingons would do it I think even if the Federation wouldn't.


I don't think it gets to Omega.

And so the Omega Solution is offered: destroy key infrastructure from orbit to prevent further ship construction, blast the planet with EMP weapons and other anti-tech munitions, then leave a few Omega particles that will become unstable. Trap the aliens on their own planet without the ability to use warp and threaten their neighbors again without a permenant peacekeeping force in space to stop new ship construction.

Is this a viable idea or no?

No. Too dangerous, could backfire... I think they'd choose genocide. I really do.

[Terralthra]

Sisko made a Maquis colony uninhabitable by humans, but explicitly not to Cardassians. So, he didn't wipe out the entire biosphere.

[bilateralrope]

The only way I can see an Omega molecule getting used is if the Federation want to protect that species from the rest of the galaxy. If the Federation are angry enough to consider the Omega molecule to contain a species, then they are well past the point where they are angry enough to sit back and let someone else genocide that species.

But if the Federation are calm enough that they don't want to allow genocide, but they don't have much of a fleet left, they might be desperate enough to use one to prevent anyone else getting close enough to genocide the planet.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Sisko made a Maquis colony uninhabitable by humans, but explicitly not to Cardassians. So, he didn't wipe out the entire biosphere.

Yes I know, I'm just pointing out it's possible for them to affect an entire biosphere (in this case against Humans) in seconds. And the Maquis did it to the Cardassians making a planet uninhabitable for them.

Not only possible, but they will do it.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The only way I can see an Omega molecule getting used is if the Federation want to protect that species from the rest of the galaxy. If the Federation are angry enough to consider the Omega molecule to contain a species, then they are well past the point where they are angry enough to sit back and let someone else genocide that species.

But if the Federation are calm enough that they don't want to allow genocide, but they don't have much of a fleet left, they might be desperate enough to use one to prevent anyone else getting close enough to genocide the planet.

Except even if the Omega thingy does stop warp travel for, say, 2 light-years in all directions from the planet you're quarantining, that doesn't actually stop anyone from genociding them.

All you need is a bunch of big, heavy, self-guided metal bolts with impulse engines attached. Let them accelerate in until they hit the planet at near-lightspeed and it's game over. Sure, it might take 5-6 years, but so what? Someone involved in the war will be angry enough to do it; it doesn't even have to be a government action.

[Alferd Packer]

The only argument I can make against genociding the homeworld is that you better be absolutely goddamn sure that you got everything else of theirs, lest you prompt a suicide attack on Earth or Qo'noS by some overlooked vestige of the enemy's fleet. A permanent blockade may be more palatable, if ultimately more costly in lives and materiel.

[Prometheus Unbound]

The only argument I can make against genociding the homeworld is that you better be absolutely goddamn sure that you got everything else of theirs

That's the only argument you can come up with?

Seriously?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

In the last battle of the Dominion War the allies had a choice- do they keep the Jem'Hadar/Breen bottled up around Cardassia Prime, and risking them rebuilding their fleet (somehow described as impressive despite the Dominion only having access to the resources of a single planet), or pressing on to end the war sooner but sustain far more casualties in the short term.

And of course, the infecting of the Founders by Section 31 shows there are at least some elements of the Federation that aren't averse to genocide.

[Ralin]

I've never heard of these Omega particles before, but this seems really over-complicated. If the aliens have been beaten to the point where it's feasible to wipe out the infrastructure on their last planet from orbit then why not just set up a permanent blockade and watch on the place? Yeah it would be expensive, but so are a lot of things Starfleet does and stationing however many warships it takes to smack down any attempt Space ISIS makes to build new weapons and shipyards has to be more reliable than some weird ass experimental thing that makes warp travel impossible for [insert radius].

And forced demilitarization is good few steps away from planetary genocide.

[The Romulan Republic]

Honestly, if you've got an interstellar civilization on the scale of the Federation and you've got a comparably advanced enemy trapped on a single world, their is absolutely zero need to resort to something as brutal and irreversible as genocide. Just destroy any ship yards and surface to space weaponry via precision orbital bombardment, put a couple ships in orbit as a blockade, and shoot down everything that tries to leave the surface. Unless they figure out how to build transporters that work across interstellar distances or something like that, you've got them safely isolated indefinitely.

[Zixinus]

I think that such a thing would be an excellent opportunity for the Federation to try and make a moral high ground by blockading the species, sending them back to the stone-age/iron-age and try to reform them. Or at least try to figure out how the hell did something so xenocidal came to be. Maybe figure out a way to see early signs in other non-contacted species. The Klingons might not like it, but they could be assuaged by showing how humiliated their enemy will be in the process.