The Delta Quadrant War

[Ender]

IIRC it tooks the 8s 2 shots to kill cubes.

As oppossed to hours of a federation fleet pounding the suckers.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

As oppossed to hours of a federation fleet pounding the suckers.

And yet Voyager can take multiple hits from them. Can you say inconsitencey? I know you can.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Bah crap, quoted wrong guy. Curse this lack of edit. Meant to tack that message onto GAT's post.

[Darth Negation]

Why would the Empire want to invade "Fluidic Space"? If it's fluidic, it's highly doubtful that there are resources available.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Why would the Empire want to invade "Fluidic Space"? If it's fluidic, it's highly doubtful that there are resources available.

Nobody knows anything about Fluidic Space, beyond that it is the home-dimension of S8472. The resources there are unknown, and irrelevent.

If the Empire needs resources, they can simpyl ship them from their galaxy.

[Peregrin Toker]

Why would the Empire want to invade "Fluidic Space"? If it's fluidic, it's highly doubtful that there are resources available.

Nobody knows anything about Fluidic Space, beyond that it is the home-dimension of S8472. The resources there are unknown, and irrelevent.

If the Empire needs resources, they can simpyl ship them from their galaxy.

So if we put the Empire in the Borg's place, would the war against #8472 have started at all?? (IIRC, the Borg invaded the Fluidic Space because they wanted to assimilate #8472)

[Lord of the Farce]

Why would the Empire want to invade "Fluidic Space"? If it's fluidic, it's highly doubtful that there are resources available.

Maybe they found that the fluidic space fluids made for good mouthwash? Who knows.

[Eleas]

Some points:

* There was evidence of adaptation. The S8472 beams seen in Scorpion PT1 virtually destroyed cubes with a single shot - the second usually served to blow it up. By the time of the second episode, the Borg ships still took grievous amounts of damage from a single shots, but were able to fight back afterwards.

* There is little evidence that S8472 ships would be able to casually penetrate Imperial planetary shields. Seeing as how the ejecta caused by the beam appeared to be traveling at roughly 3 km/s (which is below escape velocity, implying that the planet wasn't truly destroyed!), the effective yield of their planet buster weaponry is less than 1E32 J, delivered during approximately 7s time, assuming the planet has earth-like gravity.

* If the above assumption is correct (I'm hung over right now, so it might not be), then the Empire's best equivalent to S8472 planet-buster ships wouldn't be the DS, but rather Sovereign-class battlecruisers.

* The bioship that fired upon Voyager at first was damaged. It is not unreasonable to suppose that its weaponry was damaged, as well.

[Eleas]

Addendum: Some statements have been made to the effect that the S8472 beam duration was 15s, but this will not change the fact that the DS weapons output comfortably sits several orders of magnitude above this.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

IIRC it tooks the 8s 2 shots to kill cubes.

As oppossed to hours of a federation fleet pounding the suckers.

So? It would take hundreds of thousands of PTs just to match one shot from a Acclamator's heavy guns, and potentially millions for a ISDs.

[Kamakazie Sith]

IIRC it tooks the 8s 2 shots to kill cubes.

As oppossed to hours of a federation fleet pounding the suckers.

So? It would take hundreds of thousands of PTs just to match one shot from a Acclamator's heavy guns, and potentially millions for a ISDs.

*Salute to Dumb and Dumber*

So your saying they have a chance!

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

The same chance a ant has against a M1A2.

[Kamakazie Sith]

The same chance a ant has against a M1A2.

You mean the ants from those 50s movies?

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

The same chance a ant has against a M1A2.

You mean the ants from those 50s movies?

No, the ants that are infinitly dense and collapse into black holes that suck up all matter in the galaxy.

[seanrobertson]

Some points:

* There was evidence of adaptation. The S8472 beams seen in Scorpion PT1 virtually destroyed cubes with a single shot - the second usually served to blow it up. By the time of the second episode, the Borg ships still took grievous amounts of damage from a single shots, but were able to fight back afterwards.

That's true. They did seem to handle the damage a bit better.

That begs a question: how does one "adapt" to raw energy?

To my knowledge, that is not possible. Therefore, bioship weapons do operate according to something other than sheer energy release.

* There is little evidence that S8472 ships would be able to casually penetrate Imperial planetary shields. Seeing as how the ejecta caused by the beam appeared to be traveling at roughly 3 km/s (which is below escape velocity, implying that the planet wasn't truly destroyed!), the effective yield of their planet buster weaponry is less than 1E32 J, delivered during approximately 7s time, assuming the planet has earth-like gravity.

As per your addendum in that following post, it was in fact 15 seconds before the planet blew up.

Now, I do not get the idea that ejecta was travelling at only 3 km/sec. How did you come to that conclusion? It would've taken a very long time for it to reach orbit, which it didn't.

And I'd have to say the planet was indeed shattered, though it used some kind of technobabble to accomplish that step.

Yet I agree, the bio-beam isn't going to just blow planetary shields away...it's possible that, given some dwell time, it might threaten low-level planetary shields. (That the formation might have that "dwell time" could be dubious, given the kind of planetary-based turbolasers and ion cannons we hear about in the EU. Bioships are rather small, but they're not big on wild maneuvering either.)

* If the above assumption is correct (I'm hung over right now, so it might not be), then the Empire's best equivalent to S8472 planet-buster ships wouldn't be the DS, but rather Sovereign-class battlecruisers.

That was my thought, as well. Or perhaps a small flotilla of lesser warships, though I don't think even 3 ISDs can shatter a planet's crust in a few seconds.

* The bioship that fired upon Voyager at first was damaged. It is not unreasonable to suppose that its weaponry was damaged, as well.

That's entirely possible.

And the fact remains, VGR didn't take multiple direct hits at any one encounter. One grazing hit dropped their shields altogether. Even with the Borg enhancements, they were still defenseless after a single hit.

And goofy as it might sound, we don't know that the first couple of bioships were trying to destroy VGR. Yes, it's a "low-yield" argument, but since it has no effect on the outcome of an Imperial vs. 8472 war whatsoever, hang with me for a second:

We know at least one bioship had reason to board a Borg ship. Maybe they wanted to see what the drones were like, wanted to access a Borg computer--whatever. Doesn't really matter.

Anyway, the 8s didn't have to leave a cube intact for this purpose; it's big enough that some of its debris was still habitable for drones (and hence, the 8 could check them out in their natural environment, observe their behavior, access their computer, etc.).

VGR, on the other hand, should be totally destroyed by cube-killing level blasts. If the 8s were also curious about VGR and wanted to board it, they'd have to back off on the weapon power.

When VGR's in fluid space later on, I do not think they were pulling their punches, however. At that point, they knew VGR had weapons "that could destroy them" courtesy of Kes.

[Eleas]

Some points:

* There was evidence of adaptation. The S8472 beams seen in Scorpion PT1 virtually destroyed cubes with a single shot - the second usually served to blow it up. By the time of the second episode, the Borg ships still took grievous amounts of damage from a single shots, but were able to fight back afterwards.

That's true. They did seem to handle the damage a bit better.

That begs a question: how does one "adapt" to raw energy?

To my knowledge, that is not possible. Therefore, bioship weapons do operate according to something other than sheer energy release.

It is impossible if we go by the idea that adaptation solely consists of shield frequency alteration. But adaptation as a concept simply means countering an obstacle. They could have increased their shield output, jury-rigged them or put them in overdrive. It's just a thought, anyway.

As per your addendum in that following post, it was in fact 15 seconds before the planet blew up.

Now, I do not get the idea that ejecta was travelling at only 3 km/sec. How did you come to that conclusion? It would've taken a very long time for it to reach orbit, which it didn't.

And I'd have to say the planet was indeed shattered, though it used some kind of technobabble to accomplish that step.

True. I got that from second-hand sources; I haven't by myself performed a pixel count of the speed of the ejecta. There was debate about this on ASVS, and Chuck Sonnenburg gathered a number of calculations on the observed capabilities of the Borg, including the Scorpion incident. This page is no longer up, however, so I was forced to turn to older posts. I'm afraid I can't find the posts with the actual calcs, however.

Yet I agree, the bio-beam isn't going to just blow planetary shields away...it's possible that, given some dwell time, it might threaten low-level planetary shields. (That the formation might have that "dwell time" could be dubious, given the kind of planetary-based turbolasers and ion cannons we hear about in the EU. Bioships are rather small, but they're not big on wild maneuvering either.)

Well, we don't know. Some people have bandied about numbers in the 1E38 J range, and that is definitely sufficient to deal with most planetary shields.

That was my thought, as well. Or perhaps a small flotilla of lesser warships, though I don't think even 3 ISDs can shatter a planet's crust in a few seconds.

Me neither. If they could, the Eclipse's superlaser would be super-fluous. *ducks*

That's entirely possible.

And the fact remains, VGR didn't take multiple direct hits at any one encounter. One grazing hit dropped their shields altogether. Even with the Borg enhancements, they were still defenseless after a single hit.

And goofy as it might sound, we don't know that the first couple of bioships were trying to destroy VGR. Yes, it's a "low-yield" argument, but since it has no effect on the outcome of an Imperial vs. 8472 war whatsoever, hang with me for a second:

We know at least one bioship had reason to board a Borg ship. Maybe they wanted to see what the drones were like, wanted to access a Borg computer--whatever. Doesn't really matter.

Anyway, the 8s didn't have to leave a cube intact for this purpose; it's big enough that some of its debris was still habitable for drones (and hence, the 8 could check them out in their natural environment, observe their behavior, access their computer, etc.).

VGR, on the other hand, should be totally destroyed by cube-killing level blasts. If the 8s were also curious about VGR and wanted to board it, they'd have to back off on the weapon power.

When VGR's in fluid space later on, I do not think they were pulling their punches, however. At that point, they knew VGR had weapons "that could destroy them" courtesy of Kes.

Sounds reasonable. Only... weren't the weapons made by the Doctor and Kes?

[Ender]

Some points:

* There was evidence of adaptation. The S8472 beams seen in Scorpion PT1 virtually destroyed cubes with a single shot - the second usually served to blow it up. By the time of the second episode, the Borg ships still took grievous amounts of damage from a single shots, but were able to fight back afterwards.

That's true. They did seem to handle the damage a bit better.

That begs a question: how does one "adapt" to raw energy?

To my knowledge, that is not possible. Therefore, bioship weapons do operate according to something other than sheer energy release.

While Elas makes a point about energy adaptation above, it also remains that the script says they are chain reaction weapons, indicating there is something more.

[Ender]

True. I got that from second-hand sources; I haven't by myself performed a pixel count of the speed of the ejecta. There was debate about this on ASVS, and Chuck Sonnenburg gathered a number of calculations on the observed capabilities of the Borg, including the Scorpion incident. This page is no longer up, however, so I was forced to turn to older posts. I'm afraid I can't find the posts with the actual calcs, however.

That says that it hit the borg cube at about 3km/sec, not that it left the planet at that rate. the borg cube was fleeing as well, so it's the difference in relative velocities, not the velocity of the ejecta

[Kamakazie Sith]

The same chance a ant has against a M1A2.

You mean the ants from those 50s movies?

No, the ants that are infinitly dense and collapse into black holes that suck up all matter in the galaxy.

Cool.....

[Eleas]

That says that it hit the borg cube at about 3km/sec, not that it left the planet at that rate. the borg cube was fleeing as well, so it's the difference in relative velocities, not the velocity of the ejecta

Point. I haven't watched the episode in a long time, I'm afraid.

[seanrobertson]

It is impossible if we go by the idea that adaptation solely consists of shield frequency alteration. But adaptation as a concept simply means countering an obstacle. They could have increased their shield output, jury-rigged them or put them in overdrive. It's just a thought, anyway.

And a good one, actually!

That's something I've thought about before. In "Dark Frontier," shield adaptation entailed "triaxlating" the "shield matrix" to "absorb their [Species 10026's] phaser pulses." Perhaps the cubes did something similar against the Eights, though triaxlating shields sounds odd. (A signal I could understand, but shields? )

True. I got that from second-hand sources; I haven't by myself performed a pixel count of the speed of the ejecta. There was debate about this on ASVS, and Chuck Sonnenburg gathered a number of calculations on the observed capabilities of the Borg, including the Scorpion incident. This page is no longer up, however, so I was forced to turn to older posts. I'm afraid I can't find the posts with the actual calcs, however.

That's okay Fear not. We'll re-do them sometime.

Well, we don't know. Some people have bandied about numbers in the 1E38 J range, and that is definitely sufficient to deal with most planetary shields.

I see.

My thought on the bio-blast is that it involves a very sizable, initial energy release--that's why we see such dramatic thermal effects on the planet's crust.

From there, the chain-reaction seems to take over. So we go from something maybe stellar level, roughly speaking, to something Death Star-like (though the explosion wasn't that dramatic).

Sounds reasonable. Only... weren't the weapons made by the Doctor and Kes?

Yeah, heh I was unclear. I meant that by that time, the Eights knew VGR had such weapons because they were reading Kes' mind, not that she was the true brains behind modifying the nanoprobes

[T-1000]

uh, why did Janeway help the Borg? Was she retarded?

Better question: why wasn't Janeway court martialed and arrested for this when she got home?

[Death from the Sea]

So if the Empire invaded fluidic space, how would turbolasers work in fluidic space compared to normal space? I would assume somewhat different if at all. Or maybe with some modificztions to them to allow them to work.