In Defense of the Federation

Striderteen · Post by **Striderteen** » 2003-05-19 02:04pm

The power generation technologies used on board Star Wars vessels are obviously incredibly advanced and almost ludicrously powerful, but they're not infinite. A Victory class Star Destroyer, for example, is capable of conducting a Base Delta Zero operation; however, it's considered impractical with this class as it uses up nearly forty percent of the ship's total fuel capacity. The Imperator class Star Destroyer, of course, is larger and more heavily armed -- however, it still has a finite fuel capacity.

BDZ is not a viable sustained military tactic -- if it was, building the Death Star would be rather pointless. The fact that the Empire *can* and *will* conduct such operations is a powerful deterrent, regardless of its practicality or lack thereof -- but in a do-or-die situation as the Federation faces, you just grit your teeth and accept the casualties.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2003-05-19 02:08pm

The Death Star was not a replacement for the BDZ but a far more powerful deterrent because SW has shields that can withstand the firepower of a BDZ.

Thus a false analogy.

You've still yet to provide a way that ST can somehow give a sector group(unless they are morons) enough deterrent to leave.

BDZ a couple major worlds would show any group they are capable enough to do what take practically your entire starfleet to accomplish(or a uber device)

If that doesn't break morale then you're not leading the Federation but zombies.

Striderteen · Post by **Striderteen** » 2003-05-19 02:12pm

The Federation's hope is to be like Switzerland:

You can defeat us if you try, since we're a tiny little nation whose industrial capacity is ludicrously tiny compared to yours, but we can hurt you badly enough that it would be stupid of you to invade us -- if you send in your troops you'll take *tons* of casualties and gain very little, and if you use overwhelming mass firepower you won't gain anything at all, since you'd basically have to wipe us out to the last man, woman and child.

Darth Negation · Post by **Darth Negation** » 2003-05-19 02:16pm

I've got it!

Fit runabouts with destructive nanites set to replicate using all materials nearby and a phase cloak. When Star Destroyers show up, move the runabout through the destroyers while jettisonning the nanites. The Imp's won't be able to stop all of the nanites if you drop enough of them througout the ship.

Striderteen · Post by **Striderteen** » 2003-05-19 02:17pm

Hence, the question is not whether or not the Federation can stand up to the Empire (which is utterly out of the question), but whether or not it can put together enough of a military/militia to make an Imperial invasion counterproductive.

Of course, Palpatine might decide to wipe them out anyway. Which he can quite easily do.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2003-05-19 02:18pm

Then I nuke Switzerland then I don't have to worry about them trying to counterattack.

This is what they are up against...a ruthless war machine that has no compunction against overhwelming force to make their statement known.

The Federation does not have within five years anywhere near the technology to offset the initial Imperial advantages...and when the New Order cleanses their sector, they build the gate, send in for reinforcements which searchs the galaxy to insure the name Federation is wiped clean from history if they keep putting up a resistence.

Striderteen · Post by **Striderteen** » 2003-05-19 02:22pm

*shrug*

The Empire might not bother going after a useless galactic backwater that's not worth the resources it would take to conquer...or it could decide to wipe out the entire Federation as an example for all who would dare resist the Empire. In the former scenario, the Federation *might* be able to survive; in the latter, nothing will save it.

Striderteen · Post by **Striderteen** » 2003-05-19 02:32pm

On the other hand, I *really* doubt the Empire would send an entire sector fleet against something as pitifully weak as the Federation, especially in the post-ROTJ era where they don't have near-infinite resources. Why waste a whole sector fleet when a dozen Dreadnoughts should be able to do the job just fine?

We're not going to be fighting a sector fleet; we're going to be fighting a small invasion force designed to defeat the utterly incompetent pseudo-military known as Starfleet. A massive rearmament campaign combined with effective leadership *might* give us a fighting chance against that force.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2003-05-19 02:40pm

Actually why not a sector fleet?

This an unknown galaxy, without unknown resources and unknown military capablities.

A sector fleet would be able to properly assess the fighting capabilites and report back to the Empire.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-05-19 02:46pm

Make up you mind, Striderteen. If it's important enough for the Empire to invade, it's at least important enough for them to send a sector group (or worse, an oversector group). Saying it's not important enough for the Empire to send a reasonable force only after you've discovered how badly the Federation is outmatched makes you look like a fanwhore.

Soulman · Post by **Soulman** » 2003-05-19 03:04pm

There would be ways to hurt the Empire if the Feds are given enough warning. Like hordes (like tens upon tens of thousands) of cloaked intelligent torps that sit dormant in space until Imp forces come near before firing thier engines and whizzing off to thier destruction. Semi intelligent androids and automated replicator plants (which build copies of themselves as well, so that planetary surfaces could be covered with them) on unhabited planets churning out armadas of drone ships and armies of clones (as mentioned before) and, again, androids.

Of course the Imps would win if they put any effort into the invasion but they could lose a lot of lighter ships and suchlike.

Striderteen · Post by **Striderteen** » 2003-05-19 03:36pm

Iceberg wrote:Make up you mind, Striderteen. If it's important enough for the Empire to invade, it's at least important enough for them to send a sector group (or worse, an oversector group). Saying it's not important enough for the Empire to send a reasonable force only after you've discovered how badly the Federation is outmatched makes you look like a fanwhore.

I guess I should have specified the scenario more clearly. The Empire has dispatched a handful of probe droids to the Alpha Quadrant and gathered enough intelligence to classify the Federation as utterly laughable. Hence, they're sending a light invasion force for what they expect to be a walk in the park; the force's objective is to conquer the Alpha Quadrant, construct a return gate, and then bring in a ton of mining ships to strip the Federation's worlds of all valuable resources.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2003-05-19 03:42pm

Striderteen wrote:The infinitely annoying superbeing Q has just informed Starfleet Command that an invasion force from a galaxy far, far away is headed for the Alpha Quadrant and will arrive in five years. Realizing that drastic changes are needed if the Federation is to have any chance at all of surviving the coming war, the Federation Council has sacked Starfleet Command and appointed you as Supreme High Admiral over the entire fleet. For the duration of this crisis, your word is law throughout the Federation; you have complete, absolute control.

Your mission: transform the Federation into a lean, mean fighting machine that can give the Empire enough of a bloody nose that it won't come back. According to Q, the portal technology being used by the Empire is a one-shot deal; if you can stop the initial invasion, it'll be the end of the affair. If you fail, they'll construct a return gate and it'll be curtains for the entire Star Trek galaxy.

Resource-wise, you're more or less stuck with what Starfleet already has -- you can retrofit to your heart's content, but there simply isn't enough time to develop and build new ship classes. Current fleet size is 200 front-line starships, including nine Galaxy-class ships (the three surviving members of the original production run of six ships, plus six reserve spaceframes which have already been brought to operational status), twelve Nebula-class ships, six Defiant-class ships, and two dozen Intrepid-class ships; the remainder consists of older Ambassador and Akira class ships. An additional three Sovereign-class ships are currently under construction and should be operational within the next six months.

I surrender to the empire and ask to serve as their leader in this area, ruler of the alpha quadrant. I supply any and all info they need for expansion, and serve them loyally.

Striderteen · Post by **Striderteen** » 2003-05-19 03:48pm

That's probably what I'd do if I was actually in that situation, although I'd ask for a Star Destroyer or two as well.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-05-19 03:52pm

The Empire's probably going to pack along enough supplies to handle their estimation of the Federation, the Klingons AND the Romulans, so I'd estimate about half a sector group, plus enough supply ships to keep an invasion going for a full year (the Empire's got the resources of a whole GALAXY to bear, supplies for a few million troops and crewers for a year is a drop in the bucket).

The Third Man · Post by **The Third Man** » 2003-05-19 04:17pm

As the Fed supremo, recognising that I'd never win a stand-up fight preparations would have to be towards making the UFP too much trouble for the Imperials to hold. In addition to some of the ideas already mentioned I'd consider the following:

Begin massive decentralisation of weapons/spacetravel industries

Counter-intelligence (is this the correct term?) and a concerted in-depth campaign of disinformation - I'd set C31 et al to spreading all manner of contradictory rumours, lies and exagerations about the location, assets and capabilities of the UFP, to the extent that no-one, even the UFP own citizens and SF officers, would know what was where. Play up the 'lost-tech' super weapons, whether I have them or not. The object is to set the Imperial forces on a series of wild goose chases.

Whoever implemented the extremely effective social engineering techniques that made the UFP into such a docile and passive society would be located and immediately set to work undoing their previous efforts and going in the opposite direction, to get me a self-reliant society prepared to fight to the death.

Keeping starship assets distributed, ready to become guerilla units after the conquest.

Political preparations involving all the factions in the galaxy. Not that I'd hope to achieve anything directly, I'd be looking to tempt the Empire into doing political deals with one or more factions as a short-cut. The plan would be to manipulate the political situation such that the Empire get themselves mired down in the politics - this would reduce the chances of them resorting to planetary destructions.

Cynically setting up/exacerbating a small-scale, low-intensity conflict (eg Maquis) so that I'd have a training ground to get forces battle-hardened and accustomed to the tactics most useful to them post-invasion.

Solauren · Post by **Solauren** » 2003-05-19 10:43pm

Hmmmmm...... this is a tricky one

I'd have to say, find a way to make a wormhole and toss them into Borg space.

The Borg might end up with some Imperial technology, but the Borg would STILL be idiots.

Actually, in all seriousness, I'm writing a fan-fic which a premise like this.

Some of the highlight's of the "let's get ready to get pounded" are...
Redesign all warp cores so they have more safeties and are safer (i.e manual shut off values for the anti-mater injector come to mind)
More Anti-matter reactors/Warp Cores
1- for the Warp Drive
1- for the Weapons
1- For the Shields
1- to use for the "Anti-Borg deflector" weapon from Best of Both Worlds

I'd try to recreate the shields Voyager used to fly into a supernova and then into the Q-Contium. If that means begging Q for help, or ordering someone to sleep with him, so be it.
Also, what's with this "one deflector dish" deal. Let's go for 3 or 4.

Screw Photon, Qauntum and Transphasic Torpedoes. Start building 300 megaton nuclear weapons, and more powerful if I can make them

LOTS MORE weapons on Star Ships. Crew nice, apartment style crew quarters, we need the room for phaser cannons.

example: Galaxy Class ships would be getting as many phaser cannons and warhead launchers as I could put on.

Does Voyager still have the Isokinetic Cannon? (Railgun). If so, mass produce it all over the fleet

Albative Armor Generators

if I have the q super shields (yes, this might sound insane), and they are strong enough to stop the radiation from it, use Geodesic folds to get around and DITCH THE WARP NACELLES for more weapons.

1.5 KG of antimatter in a torpedo? What about 1.5 TONS or Kilotons? That would pack a nice explosion

the Genesis Device. I don't care if it works, I just want it to blow things up with it. Since shields probably stop the genesis device however...

The "Dimensional Shift" transporter those terrorist uses in one episode of TNG. They might bypass Imperial shields. If they did, that could turn any war in favour of the Federation, or at least give the Imperial's problems. The question is, do they, and what's the range of those compared to a Turbolaser?

Darth Negation · Post by **Darth Negation** » 2003-05-20 08:28am

What about dropping nanites throuoght Imperial ship using phase shifted cloaked runabouts?

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2003-05-20 10:35am

Darth Negation wrote:What about dropping nanites throuoght Imperial ship using phase shifted cloaked runabouts?

I can see a lot of potential problems there.

The first, of course, is to make phase cloaking work without horribly killing the crew or leaving them to die horribly while "out of phase" with their surroundings. This is something the Federation has not yet managed to do, though I suspect that the Southern guy from Enterprise will perfect it shortly.

This unproven technology is one that the undisputed Allpha Quadrant masters of cloaking technologies, the Romulans, have not managed to get working. Otherwise the Federation, the Klingon Empire and the Cardassians would all be dead or enslaved and no longer an obstacle to Romulan manifest destiny. The Federation hasn't even managed to get transwarp working about a century after having first deployed a prototype system.

The selective unphasing or decloaking of some kind of nanite delivery system within a target vessel without horribly killing the phase-cloaked ship's crew represents a further drastic step beyond the "mere" perfecting" of the general phase cloaking of a vessel.

Thirdly, deploying nanites against Imperial technology may prove terribly ineffective as the Empire has access to nanotechnologies, including nanites designed specifically to kill humans (which Mon Mothma was infected with in a story/novel whose titel I've inconveniently managed to forget). Countermeasures to protect mechanical systems against nanite attacks are therefore almost certainly available, though likely not constantly deployed.

Worse, deploying nanites against the crews could be suicidal for the Federation in more ways than provoking a BDZ. Galactic Empire fleets are largely human-crewed, and Federation humans are genetically compatible with practically anything in the Trek galaxy as long as it has two legs. This makes it very likely that the humans from the two galaxies will be sufficiently genetically compatible that nanites targeting one will as happily kill the other. An accidental exposure could be unpleasant.

Further, the fact that the Imperials are human may well make the use of what is in effect a mechanically based form of biological warfare, one likely leading to an agonizing death, unacceptable to the predominantly human staff of Starfleet. The fact that phasers appear to disintegrate people slowly while the target is fully conscious, and rather painfully, does mitigate that concern somewhat, of course.

The final strike against such a tactic is that if one had the means to deliver those nanites via phase-cloaked starship, it would be much more efficient to deliver a volley of torpedoes, or just one torpedo, or at least a bucket full of photon grenades.

Sir Sirius · Post by **Sir Sirius** » 2003-05-20 11:52am

I's seek out and suck-up to the First Federation, Voth and all the other powerhouses in Trek in the hope that they'll join the fight and can make a difference.

If that doesn't look like it's working I'd try to re-discover Soran sun-busting device and then start to mass-produce them and I'll give the plans to all my neighbours and advice them to do the same. Once the GE invades and worst comes to pass I'll use the sun-busting thingies to destroy every worthwhile star system in sight. The GE will win the war, but they'll have little to show for it. A draw by scorched earth strategy of sorts.
(If the sun-busting device isn't an option I'd try and the genesis device to work and then use them on all worth while planets and wait for the protomatter to do it's job.)

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2003-05-20 10:11pm

neoolong wrote:I would try to find the largest amount of white cloth I can find. And then make a flag.

Then plant the flag in an easily seeable (is that even a word?) area. Then hide under a really big rock somewhere, and stay there for about 20 years.

Darth Negation · Post by **Darth Negation** » 2003-05-21 01:17am

Patrick Ogaard wrote:
Darth Negation wrote:What about dropping nanites throuoght Imperial ship using phase shifted cloaked runabouts?
I can see a lot of potential problems there.

The first, of course, is to make phase cloaking work without horribly killing the crew or leaving them to die horribly while "out of phase" with their surroundings. This is something the Federation has not yet managed to do, though I suspect that the Southern guy from Enterprise will perfect it shortly.

This unproven technology is one that the undisputed Allpha Quadrant masters of cloaking technologies, the Romulans, have not managed to get working. Otherwise the Federation, the Klingon Empire and the Cardassians would all be dead or enslaved and no longer an obstacle to Romulan manifest destiny. The Federation hasn't even managed to get transwarp working about a century after having first deployed a prototype system.

Hmm. Might be a problem.

The selective unphasing or decloaking of some kind of nanite delivery system within a target vessel without horribly killing the phase-cloaked ship's crew represents a further drastic step beyond the "mere" perfecting" of the general phase cloaking of a vessel.

How much of a change? Surely if out of the cloak it would phase out again?

Thirdly, deploying nanites against Imperial technology may prove terribly ineffective as the Empire has access to nanotechnologies, including nanites designed specifically to kill humans (which Mon Mothma was infected with in a story/novel whose titel I've inconveniently managed to forget). Countermeasures to protect mechanical systems against nanite attacks are therefore almost certainly available, though likely not constantly deployed.

It was one of the Jedi Academy books (damn Anderson), but it would be very difficult to stop an attack like that if you started it in the shield generators and put them in EVERY SINGLE MAJOR SYSTEM as the initial damage would be done.

Worse, deploying nanites against the crews could be suicidal for the Federation in more ways than provoking a BDZ. Galactic Empire fleets are largely human-crewed, and Federation humans are genetically compatible with practically anything in the Trek galaxy as long as it has two legs. This makes it very likely that the humans from the two galaxies will be sufficiently genetically compatible that nanites targeting one will as happily kill the other. An accidental exposure could be unpleasant.

Well, the Federation is going to be destroyed anyway, and so you can't say it's not worth the risk.

Further, the fact that the Imperials are human may well make the use of what is in effect a mechanically based form of biological warfare, one likely leading to an agonizing death, unacceptable to the predominantly human staff of Starfleet. The fact that phasers appear to disintegrate people slowly while the target is fully conscious, and rather painfully, does mitigate that concern somewhat, of course.[/quote]

The leaders of Starfleet currently is the person writing. In this thread, the previous lot have been fired for incompetence.

The final strike against such a tactic is that if one had the means to deliver those nanites via phase-cloaked starship, it would be much more efficient to deliver a volley of torpedoes, or just one torpedo, or at least a bucket full of photon grenades.

Er... would you accept difficult to put them on a runabout? No? Damn.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-05-21 01:54am

Sir Sirius wrote:If that doesn't look like it's working I'd try to re-discover Soran sun-busting device and then start to mass-produce them and I'll give the plans to all my neighbours and advice them to do the same. Once the GE invades and worst comes to pass I'll use the sun-busting thingies to destroy every worthwhile star system in sight. The GE will win the war, but they'll have little to show for it. A draw by scorched earth strategy of sorts.

Even if we assume this is feasible, you would destroy billions of your own people out of spite? Doesn't this plan seem, well, INSANE to you?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-05-21 03:06pm

Darth Wong wrote: Even if we assume this is feasible, you would destroy billions of your own people out of spite? Doesn't this plan seem, well, INSANE to you?

Well, they are communist

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2003-05-21 03:36pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Sir Sirius wrote:If that doesn't look like it's working I'd try to re-discover Soran sun-busting device and then start to mass-produce them and I'll give the plans to all my neighbours and advice them to do the same. Once the GE invades and worst comes to pass I'll use the sun-busting thingies to destroy every worthwhile star system in sight. The GE will win the war, but they'll have little to show for it. A draw by scorched earth strategy of sorts.
Even if we assume this is feasible, you would destroy billions of your own people out of spite? Doesn't this plan seem, well, INSANE to you?

It's obviously not a feasible plan, since billions of casualties would be a conservative figure for that kind of campaign.

Were it feasible, the most practical application of it would be to draw together a truly huge and enormously fake fleet for a major stand right at the heart of the Federation, in various orbits around Earth. The Imperial fleet comes in full force (one hopes) and the sunbuster goes off. The system is scoured clean, the Imperial fleet hopefully (but not certainly) included.

To be at all feasible, the above plan does require thousands of volunteers to man the decoy fleet, and the mass evacuation of Earth's system. Unfortunately, that last point should prove entirely beyond the capacities of Starfleet.

Of course it would also require one to blow up the cradle of humanity, which might not be a popular decision if the alternative is to get an entry-level management job with SoroSuub's consumer products division and a dental plan.

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In Defense of the Federation

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