how to beat Empire with all known Trek tech?

[Metrion Cascade]

Okay. Let's assume there's an organization something like the Federation, but from another reality. One where the Federation somehow got its hands on EVERY piece of corporeal tech they could, up to the last season of Voyager, and is willing to use the lot of them. By "corporeal," I mean made of matter. No Q muskets or Douwd species-killing daydreams. My list of tech the Federation might have captured but instead destroyed or threw away or wimped out on or forgot about:

- the Genesis device
- the Iconian gateway
- the Tox Utaat
- trilithium bombs
- Rutian dimensional shifting
- Annorax's weapon ship (ridiculously uber by itself if you ask me)
- the Sikarian trajector (and some way to make it work on other planets)
- the Traveler's recipe for extragalactic warp speeds with a GCS drive
- the Borg transwarp methods that don't require hubs
- Thaleron radiation
- Ba'ku "fountain of youth" radiation
- the psionic resonator
- soliton waves (for propulsion or as a weapon)
- Arturis' quantum slipstream drive and "particle synthesis"
- the Caretaker's array
- the subspace catapult
- photon grenades (remember those?)
- Voth transwarp (the one scientist might have been willing to give them the schematics)
- spatial flectures (we know VOY shuttles can make them with no modifications, and Q-junior's keystrokes might have been recorded)

This can't possibly be even half of the wanktech the Federation has thrown away, but you get the point. My question - assuming some version of the Federation HAD captured these things or some other tech they had the chance to capture but didn't, could they beat the Empire, and how? To clarify - this is tech the Federation had the chance to buy/steal/militarize and chose not to. Hence my not listing the Doomsday Machine or V'ger, since the Feds never had a chance of capturing or purchasing these.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

This has been done, right?

[Ghost Rider]

This has been done...and literally same conclusions...they either go time travel(thus a cop out victory) or the Federation destroys themselves so that neither side win thus making it a pyrric victory.

[Metrion Cascade]

This has been done...and literally same conclusions...they either go time travel(thus a cop out victory) or the Federation destroys themselves so that neither side win thus making it a pyrric victory.

The 24th century Federation doesn't have reliable time travel, and I don't call that victory either. I mean the destruction of the Imperial Navy. All or nothing. They leave burning ISDs, or they die trying.

[Ghost Rider]

They'd still have to contend that basically they have weapons that cause mass destruction but gain them no benefit.

Literally they destroy the ISD group when they supernova the star within that system.

Like last time...piss poor victory.

[Metrion Cascade]

They'd still have to contend that basically they have weapons that cause mass destruction but gain them no benefit.

Literally they destroy the ISD group when they supernova the star within that system.

Like last time...piss poor victory.

Could an ISD's shields prevent a torpedo from being shifted or trajectored onboard, or flying in with a phase cloak? What of Annorax's weapon? One hit against any ship is all it takes...and we don't know what's required (besides internal sabotage) for realspace weapons to hit him.

[Ender]

This has been done, right?

Yes, by AJT.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Again, the conclusion is that Trek has to cheat to win...

[SirNitram]

They'd still have to contend that basically they have weapons that cause mass destruction but gain them no benefit.

Literally they destroy the ISD group when they supernova the star within that system.

Like last time...piss poor victory.

Could an ISD's shields prevent a torpedo from being shifted or trajectored onboard, or flying in with a phase cloak? What of Annorax's weapon? One hit against any ship is all it takes...and we don't know what's required (besides internal sabotage) for realspace weapons to hit him.

I wouldn't worry about the shields(Which do, in fact, stretch into what's called subspace.), but about the hull. Trek subspace, the mechanism for most of these ubertechs, is notoriously powerless against superdense material. An ISD's hull is definately superdense.

[Enola Straight]

Omega Bombs.

If Omega particles knock out Hyperspace the same way it destroys Subspace...of course, your planet's system is forever stripped of FTL tech.

[Darth Wong]

Okay. Let's assume there's an organization something like the Federation, but from another reality. One where the Federation somehow got its hands on EVERY piece of corporeal tech they could, up to the last season of Voyager, and is willing to use the lot of them. By "corporeal," I mean made of matter. No Q muskets or Douwd species-killing daydreams. My list of tech the Federation might have captured but instead destroyed or threw away or wimped out on or forgot about:

- the Genesis device

Unknown effect on shields; no method of delivering it to Imperial worlds faster than the Empire can rain death upon Federation worlds.

- the Iconian gateway

Too small to pass objects larger than a man, working destinations cycle through a limited set with apparently limited range (judging by how quickly the cycle repeated itself, it didn't exactly run through all of the interesting locales in the universe or even the whole galaxy).

- the Tox Utaat

Good for destroying a single star. No method of delivering it to Imperial worlds faster than the Empire can rain death upon Federation worlds.

- trilithium bombs

See above.

- Rutian dimensional shifting

Range is unknown, ability to penetrate dense metals is unknown but doubtful (in light of the fact that subspace sensors can't even penetrate such metals).

- Annorax's weapon ship (ridiculously uber by itself if you ask me)

aka Krenim timeship. Probably just drives the ship into alternate timelines, rather than accomplishing anything in the local timeline. While the show implied that there is only one timeline which he could constantly rewrite, "Parallels" proved that there are in fact hundreds of thousands of timelines at a bare minimum.

- the Sikarian trajector (and some way to make it work on other planets)

aka- long range starship teleporter found in the delta quadrant. The Federation never had a genuine opportunity to capture this device, and it does only work on one planet, thus creating a single point of failure for any strategy revolving around its use. A capture, torture, and subsequent strategic strike would not only eliminate the use of this planet and its trajector, but it would also strand any Federation ships which had become dependent upon its use.

- the Traveler's recipe for extragalactic warp speeds with a GCS drive

That was not a piece of capturable technology; it was an innate property of the Traveler himself.

- the Borg transwarp methods that don't require hubs

And take months to traverse the galaxy.

- Thaleron radiation

Unknown effects against shielding, long charge-up time makes them useless in combat.

- Ba'ku "fountain of youth" radiation

A great asset to offer as a potential concession in peace negotiations, but hardly something which can be used as a weapon.

- the psionic resonator

Its demonstrated abilities were no more lethal than any handgun, and it would certainly not stop a starship from destroying its user.

- soliton waves (for propulsion or as a weapon)

It destructive ability was a matter of speculation, not observation. Not to mention the fact that a GCS survived flight through it and a half-dozen photon torpedoes harmlessly dissipated it.

- Arturis' quantum slipstream drive and "particle synthesis"

Three months to reach the alpha quadrant from the delta quadrant, according to his projections.

- the Caretaker's array

Totally undefended and unshielded. An easy target.

- the subspace catapult

Only good for a few thousand light years, and they never used it again.

- photon grenades (remember those?)

They appear to be some kind of EMP device. The Empire is already accustomed to the use of such weapons, and even has DEMP devices.

- Voth transwarp (the one scientist might have been willing to give them the schematics)

Without the powerplant and other assorted infrastructures, it is highly doubtful that they could make it work.

- spatial flectures (we know VOY shuttles can make them with no modifications, and Q-junior's keystrokes might have been recorded)

Of course, one must assume that Q-jr's presence had nothing to do with the phenomenon working. How do we know it's not like the Traveler's manipulations?

This can't possibly be even half of the wanktech the Federation has thrown away, but you get the point. My question - assuming some version of the Federation HAD captured these things or some other tech they had the chance to capture but didn't, could they beat the Empire, and how? To clarify - this is tech the Federation had the chance to buy/steal/militarize and chose not to. Hence my not listing the Doomsday Machine or V'ger, since the Feds never had a chance of capturing or purchasing these.

So far from this list, they still don't have the ability to beat the Empire in a stand-up fight or even survive for any decent length of time.

How would any of this stop the Empire from saying "surrender or we'll reduce all 150 of your major worlds to slag in 12 hours" and being able to deliver on that threat?

[Metrion Cascade]

Okay. Let's assume there's an organization something like the Federation, but from another reality. One where the Federation somehow got its hands on EVERY piece of corporeal tech they could, up to the last season of Voyager, and is willing to use the lot of them. By "corporeal," I mean made of matter. No Q muskets or Douwd species-killing daydreams. My list of tech the Federation might have captured but instead destroyed or threw away or wimped out on or forgot about:

- the Genesis device

Unknown effect on shields; no method of delivering it to Imperial worlds faster than the Empire can rain death upon Federation worlds.

The Genesis device has to be delivered by a ship anyway, yes? I'm assuming these technologies can be used in concert - say a transwarp ship or trajector delivering the bomb (assuming a given delivery method works).

- the Iconian gateway

Too small to pass objects larger than a man, working destinations cycle through a limited set with apparently limited range (judging by how quickly the cycle repeated itself, it didn't exactly run through all of the interesting locales in the universe or even the whole galaxy).

Conceded.

- the Tox Utaat

Good for destroying a single star. No method of delivering it to Imperial worlds faster than the Empire can rain death upon Federation worlds.

- trilithium bombs

See above.

Again, all of these assume one of the propulsion systems I mentioned works.

- Rutian dimensional shifting

Range is unknown, ability to penetrate dense metals is unknown but doubtful (in light of the fact that subspace sensors can't even penetrate such metals).

What in-canon evidence is there of subspace being stopped by this or that Trek material? And no, I won't assume Trek subspace and Wars subspace are the same thing. Wars subspace might be Vaadwuar underspace or Borg transwarp. There's probably no way to prove any comparison between them.

- Annorax's weapon ship (ridiculously uber by itself if you ask me)

aka Krenim timeship. Probably just drives the ship into alternate timelines, rather than accomplishing anything in the local timeline. While the show implied that there is only one timeline which he could constantly rewrite, "Parallels" proved that there are in fact hundreds of thousands of timelines at a bare minimum.

There are references to it "pushing things out of the space-time continuum." Mean anything? I'd say that pushing it into another timeline is just as tactically effective (and in-universe) as destroying it.

- the Sikarian trajector (and some way to make it work on other planets)

aka- long range starship teleporter found in the delta quadrant. The Federation never had a genuine opportunity to capture this device, and it does only work on one planet, thus creating a single point of failure for any strategy revolving around its use. A capture, torture, and subsequent strategic strike would not only eliminate the use of this planet and its trajector, but it would also strand any Federation ships which had become dependent upon its use.

I was assuming it could be adapted for use on other planets, or that the Sikarian quartz supply wasn't completely unique.

- the Traveler's recipe for extragalactic warp speeds with a GCS drive

That was not a piece of capturable technology; it was an innate property of the Traveler himself.

Not sure about that. Conceded until I see it again, which is never.

- the Borg transwarp methods that don't require hubs

And take months to traverse the galaxy.

- Thaleron radiation

Unknown effects against shielding, long charge-up time makes them useless in combat.

Assuming they can't be charged before the ship is in range or detectable.

- Ba'ku "fountain of youth" radiation

A great asset to offer as a potential concession in peace negotiations, but hardly something which can be used as a weapon.

Conceded. I want to say medical use, but Anij wouldn't have needed Crusher if it fixed injuries.

- the psionic resonator

Its demonstrated abilities were no more lethal than any handgun, and it would certainly not stop a starship from destroying its user.

It was stated that the weapon could be used against a whole ship (presumably meaning dozens or hundreds of people, not the ship itself). But I'd say this is too speculative. Conceded.

- soliton waves (for propulsion or as a weapon)

It destructive ability was a matter of speculation, not observation. Not to mention the fact that a GCS survived flight through it and a half-dozen photon torpedoes harmlessly dissipated it.

The speculation was by its designer, whose assertions are likely to be of some accuracy. The GCS was at warp, as were the torpedoes. The ease of traversing and dissipating it may only have been a function of warp fields interfering with each other. Or perhaps the wave is only effective against objects with a certain rest mass, and the GCS and torpedoes were all mass-lightened below that threshold.

- Arturis' quantum slipstream drive and "particle synthesis"

Three months to reach the alpha quadrant from the delta quadrant, according to his projections.

Still a hell of a lot better than conventional warp, and possibly undetectable by Wars sensors.

- the Caretaker's array

Totally undefended and unshielded. An easy target.

The tech of his propulsion system was what I meant. And it must have been shielded/defended before the Caretaker's death, or the Kazon would have captured it sooner.

- the subspace catapult

Only good for a few thousand light years, and they never used it again.

It could be used to deliver weapons like the Utaat or trilithium bomb. And this hypothetical assumes the Fed is willing to reuse all of the tech as needed.

- photon grenades (remember those?)

They appear to be some kind of EMP device. The Empire is already accustomed to the use of such weapons, and even has DEMP devices.

Conceded.

- Voth transwarp (the one scientist might have been willing to give them the schematics)

Without the powerplant and other assorted infrastructures, it is highly doubtful that they could make it work.

Assuming they have the means to make it work.

- spatial flectures (we know VOY shuttles can make them with no modifications, and Q-junior's keystrokes might have been recorded)

Of course, one must assume that Q-jr's presence had nothing to do with the phenomenon working. How do we know it's not like the Traveler's manipulations?

He had been stripped of his powers as a punitive measure.

This can't possibly be even half of the wanktech the Federation has thrown away, but you get the point. My question - assuming some version of the Federation HAD captured these things or some other tech they had the chance to capture but didn't, could they beat the Empire, and how? To clarify - this is tech the Federation had the chance to buy/steal/militarize and chose not to. Hence my not listing the Doomsday Machine or V'ger, since the Feds never had a chance of capturing or purchasing these.

So far from this list, they still don't have the ability to beat the Empire in a stand-up fight or even survive for any decent length of time.

How would any of this stop the Empire from saying "surrender or we'll reduce all 150 of your major worlds to slag in 12 hours" and being able to deliver on that threat?

Feel free to add to the list whatever tech you think the Feds pointlessly abandoned. And how would the Empire carry out said slagging? ISDs? Death Stars? So I can offer possible Fed defenses.

[Kuja]

Feel free to add to the list whatever tech you think the Feds pointlessly abandoned. And how would the Empire carry out said slagging? ISDs? Death Stars? So I can offer possible Fed defenses.

Individual Star Destroyers are capable of slagging the surface of a world and rendering it completely uninhabitable, though they tend to work in teams of three for maximum efficiency.

Take a look.

More info on the BDZ operation can be found here.

[Darth Wong]

The Genesis device has to be delivered by a ship anyway, yes? I'm assuming these technologies can be used in concert - say a transwarp ship or trajector delivering the bomb (assuming a given delivery method works).

The trajector would be an excellent delivery system, but as I said, they never had a genuine chance of possessing one. And you did stipulate yourself that this was limited to things they could legitimately capture. As for the rest (non-conduit transwarp, subspace catapult, slipstream), they don't have the kind of propulsion speed necessary to solve the Federation's problem.

- Rutian dimensional shifting

Range is unknown, ability to penetrate dense metals is unknown but doubtful (in light of the fact that subspace sensors can't even penetrate such metals).

What in-canon evidence is there of subspace being stopped by this or that Trek material?

Subspace sensors can't penetrate pure duranium (or, for that matter, most heavy metals, or at least actinides). This fact was repeated many times in TNG and DS9.

There are references to it "pushing things out of the space-time continuum." Mean anything? I'd say that pushing it into another timeline is just as tactically effective (and in-universe) as destroying it.

That's what I was talking about when I referred to the implications made onscreen. However, as I said, it implies that there is just one space-time continuum, when we know from "Parallels" that there are many such continuums. For all we know, what the Krenim timeship is really doing is simply making another timeline without the offending object present.

- Thaleron radiation

Unknown effects against shielding, long charge-up time makes them useless in combat.

Assuming they can't be charged before the ship is in range or detectable.

The ship has to actually deploy various special apparatus to fire this weapon. It can't simply fire it at the press of a button, and as we saw from Nemesis, charging it up makes the ship extremely volatile, so that even the slightest damage to its thaleron core makes it blow up like a bomb. You don't want to fly around with that thing charged up. Besides, it's not going to help them when a single blast from a turbolaser turret vapes their ship anyway.

- soliton waves (for propulsion or as a weapon)

It destructive ability was a matter of speculation, not observation. Not to mention the fact that a GCS survived flight through it and a half-dozen photon torpedoes harmlessly dissipated it.

The speculation was by its designer, whose assertions are likely to be of some accuracy.

Nice try, but the designer's predictions had already been proven to be wrong, so one can hardly appeal to his authority. A narrowing channel explains the phenomenon without his idiotically unscientific hypothesis of thermodynamics-defying self-amplification.

The GCS was at warp, as were the torpedoes. The ease of traversing and dissipating it may only have been a function of warp fields interfering with each other. Or perhaps the wave is only effective against objects with a certain rest mass, and the GCS and torpedoes were all mass-lightened below that threshold.

Doesn't explain why no huge volume of energy was released when the wave dissipated. Where did all of this imaginary energy go?

- Arturis' quantum slipstream drive and "particle synthesis"

Three months to reach the alpha quadrant from the delta quadrant, according to his projections.

Still a hell of a lot better than conventional warp, and possibly undetectable by Wars sensors.

You need more than "possibly" to bet your civilization on something, and the Federation doesn't have months. If we're talking about the kind of straight-up fight where the gloves have come off (which they clearly have, if you're talking about the use of WMD such as the Genesis device or trilithium torps), it has not months, not weeks, not days, but hours.

- the Caretaker's array

Totally undefended and unshielded. An easy target.

The tech of his propulsion system was what I meant. And it must have been shielded/defended before the Caretaker's death, or the Kazon would have captured it sooner.

Well, it's neat, but again, it's a central hub, easily attacked.

- the subspace catapult

Only good for a few thousand light years, and they never used it again.

It could be used to deliver weapons like the Utaat or trilithium bomb. And this hypothetical assumes the Fed is willing to reuse all of the tech as needed.

If it's possible to do so. The fact that Voyager never used it again obviously indicates that it's not an easily reused device, if at all. And a range of a few thousand light years is not going to enable any kind of effective operational range in an entire galaxy.

Without the powerplant and other assorted infrastructures, it is highly doubtful that they could make it work.

Assuming they have the means to make it work.

Now you're rewriting your own scenario; they never had the opportunity to capture the means to make it work (ie- the rest of the Voth's superior technology), and schematics of just one piece of the puzzle are not particularly useful. They couldn't make Borg transwarp work for the same reason, remember?

Of course, one must assume that Q-jr's presence had nothing to do with the phenomenon working. How do we know it's not like the Traveler's manipulations?

He had been stripped of his powers as a punitive measure.

According to the Traveler, anyone with sufficient understanding of the universe can use the power of thought to warp its fabric. Even without his usual array of abilities, the ability to interact with a starship in this manner probably remains open to a former Q (the same probably applies to Barclay's similar feat).

So far from this list, they still don't have the ability to beat the Empire in a stand-up fight or even survive for any decent length of time.

Feel free to add to the list whatever tech you think the Feds pointlessly abandoned.

Obviously, the phase-cloak. But that wouldn't turn the tide either. There's simply too much firepower, too much speed, too much manpower.

How would any of this stop the Empire from saying "surrender or we'll reduce all 150 of your major worlds to slag in 12 hours" and being able to deliver on that threat?

And how would the Empire carry out said slagging? ISDs? Death Stars? So I can offer possible Fed defenses.

Split 150 ISDs from the fleet and send one to each of the Federation's 150 planets. Approach in hyperspace, drop into realspace in low orbit (as close as one planetary diameter out) and commence bombardment with HTLs. The first salvo already contains enough energy to cause a mass-extinction event on the surface, and a modest spread of warheads armed for stratospheric detonation will create an ionization shockwave in the upper atmosphere that EMPs virtually everything on the surface over the entire facing hemisphere. The planet is facing billions of casualties after the attack is less than 60 seconds old. At this point, engage any starships and/or starbases in orbit, prior to resuming bombardment of the surface in order to wipe out any survivors.

No superweapons are necessary.

[The Dude]

Kuja: I think MC is aware of the ISD's capabilities, but wanted to know the nature of the attack Mike was referring to - not that I think it much matters, since there is no reason for the Empire not to, say, send the DS to obliterate Earth while launching fleets of ISDsand SSDs to BDZ every other world in the UFP simultaneously (to make no mention deployment of all of the GE's other toys, like World Devastators, Galaxy Guns, etc.)

[Kuja]

Kuja: I think MC is aware of the ISD's capabilities, but wanted to know the nature of the attack Mike was referring to - *SNIP*

Oh. Well, I think the links answer that question as well.

1 Star Destroyer + 1 Feddie planet = 1 dead planet.

[Howedar]

One wonders how much energy the one-off propulsion systems throw around, or if they could be hidden in the ubiquitous nebulae and kept from the Empire's knowledge long enough to have an effect.

[Howedar]

That didn't make a lot of sense.


To clarify: if, say, the Caretaker array were extraordinarily efficient in that all energy it gave off was in a very narrow beam to/from where the ship was (or was going), it might not be found for some time.

[Darth Wong]

That didn't make a lot of sense.

To clarify: if, say, the Caretaker array were extraordinarily efficient in that all energy it gave off was in a very narrow beam to/from where the ship was (or was going), it might not be found for some time.

Sure it would. The Empire is not above the use of torture to obtain information.

[Kuja]

I wonder if the Traveler should be included in this, since his abilities IIRC are innate or can be chalked up to power of the mind, and not technological in nature.

[Metrion Cascade]

The Genesis device has to be delivered by a ship anyway, yes? I'm assuming these technologies can be used in concert - say a transwarp ship or trajector delivering the bomb (assuming a given delivery method works).

The trajector would be an excellent delivery system, but as I said, they never had a genuine chance of possessing one. And you did stipulate yourself that this was limited to things they could legitimately capture. As for the rest (non-conduit transwarp, subspace catapult, slipstream), they don't have the kind of propulsion speed necessary to solve the Federation's problem.

Trajector conceded.

Range is unknown, ability to penetrate dense metals is unknown but doubtful (in light of the fact that subspace sensors can't even penetrate such metals).

What in-canon evidence is there of subspace being stopped by this or that Trek material?

Subspace sensors can't penetrate pure duranium (or, for that matter, most heavy metals, or at least actinides). This fact was repeated many times in TNG and DS9.

Shifter conceded.

There are references to it "pushing things out of the space-time continuum." Mean anything? I'd say that pushing it into another timeline is just as tactically effective (and in-universe) as destroying it.

That's what I was talking about when I referred to the implications made onscreen. However, as I said, it implies that there is just one space-time continuum, when we know from "Parallels" that there are many such continuums. For all we know, what the Krenim timeship is really doing is simply making another timeline without the offending object present.

Annorax was obsessed with his own timeline, but this doesn't change the fact that he was changing history and hence creating new ones. So, weapon ship conceded.

Unknown effects against shielding, long charge-up time makes them useless in combat.

Assuming they can't be charged before the ship is in range or detectable.

The ship has to actually deploy various special apparatus to fire this weapon. It can't simply fire it at the press of a button, and as we saw from Nemesis, charging it up makes the ship extremely volatile, so that even the slightest damage to its thaleron core makes it blow up like a bomb. You don't want to fly around with that thing charged up. Besides, it's not going to help them when a single blast from a turbolaser turret vapes their ship anyway.

Thaleron radiation conceded.

It destructive ability was a matter of speculation, not observation. Not to mention the fact that a GCS survived flight through it and a half-dozen photon torpedoes harmlessly dissipated it.

The speculation was by its designer, whose assertions are likely to be of some accuracy.

Nice try, but the designer's predictions had already been proven to be wrong, so one can hardly appeal to his authority. A narrowing channel explains the phenomenon without his idiotically unscientific hypothesis of thermodynamics-defying self-amplification.

I think of the self-amplification like Data's self-recharging batteries. The wave must have been drawing energy from some outside source. But there's so much technobabble there I'm not interested in speculating as to what source that could be. My point was that he probably wasn't completely wrong about its power increasing (especially when the E-D was there to confirm the readings) and being a risk to the planet.

The GCS was at warp, as were the torpedoes. The ease of traversing and dissipating it may only have been a function of warp fields interfering with each other. Or perhaps the wave is only effective against objects with a certain rest mass, and the GCS and torpedoes were all mass-lightened below that threshold.

Doesn't explain why no huge volume of energy was released when the wave dissipated. Where did all of this imaginary energy go?

We don't know that no huge amount of energy was released. Perhaps the wave dropped out of warp before dissipating, and the energy was released as EM radiation that the E-D, still at warp, wouldn't detect or be affected by.

Three months to reach the alpha quadrant from the delta quadrant, according to his projections.

Still a hell of a lot better than conventional warp, and possibly undetectable by Wars sensors.

You need more than "possibly" to bet your civilization on something, and the Federation doesn't have months. If we're talking about the kind of straight-up fight where the gloves have come off (which they clearly have, if you're talking about the use of WMD such as the Genesis device or trilithium torps), it has not months, not weeks, not days, but hours.

I see no point in even mentioning any of this tech if it can't be used with similar reliability as a photorp or phaser bank.

Totally undefended and unshielded. An easy target.

The tech of his propulsion system was what I meant. And it must have been shielded/defended before the Caretaker's death, or the Kazon would have captured it sooner.

Well, it's neat, but again, it's a central hub, easily attacked.

I don't mean a single array. I mean the tech, mass-produced (within the limits of 24th century Fed industrial capacity, and assuming they know how).

Only good for a few thousand light years, and they never used it again.

It could be used to deliver weapons like the Utaat or trilithium bomb. And this hypothetical assumes the Fed is willing to reuse all of the tech as needed.

If it's possible to do so. The fact that Voyager never used it again obviously indicates that it's not an easily reused device, if at all. And a range of a few thousand light years is not going to enable any kind of effective operational range in an entire galaxy.

They never used it again because it pushed them to a point where they couldn't get back to it. They didn't take the catapult with them and then throw it away. It launched them as far as it could, and was then no longer available to them because of the distance.

Without the powerplant and other assorted infrastructures, it is highly doubtful that they could make it work.

Assuming they have the means to make it work.

Now you're rewriting your own scenario; they never had the opportunity to capture the means to make it work (ie- the rest of the Voth's superior technology), and schematics of just one piece of the puzzle are not particularly useful. They couldn't make Borg transwarp work for the same reason, remember?

I didn't say the Voth tech could be captured (nothing Voth could be captured - Voyager couldn't even fire a shot at them). I was proposing that the Voth scientist who was pushing the Distant Origin theory could give or sell Voyager his ship's schematics, since he considers Earth his homeworld and his government let him have a nice private farewell conversation with Chakotay on his ship.

Of course, one must assume that Q-jr's presence had nothing to do with the phenomenon working. How do we know it's not like the Traveler's manipulations?

He had been stripped of his powers as a punitive measure.

According to the Traveler, anyone with sufficient understanding of the universe can use the power of thought to warp its fabric. Even without his usual array of abilities, the ability to interact with a starship in this manner probably remains open to a former Q (the same probably applies to Barclay's similar feat).

Barclay had to modify the E-D's systems to generate the "spatial rift" he used to visit the Cytherians. The Traveler's statement about the power of thought may not be accurate but more of a religious sentiment (I find his statement laughable taken literally). They may only be true of his race and a few humans like Wesley. Even if they are, Q-junior still said he was using the shuttle's deflector. And if it's a matter of thought, why didn't Q senior use this thought-power to escape the Calamarain when they tortured him? IIRC, he had a shuttle available just before one of the attacks too. Bottom line: The Traveller's sentiments are about as ludicrous as the Force. I accept the Force only because its creator makes it clear that the Force is literally and universally real in Wars. There's more leeway where the Traveller's statement is concerned.

So far from this list, they still don't have the ability to beat the Empire in a stand-up fight or even survive for any decent length of time.

Feel free to add to the list whatever tech you think the Feds pointlessly abandoned.

Obviously, the phase-cloak. But that wouldn't turn the tide either. There's simply too much firepower, too much speed, too much manpower.

How would any of this stop the Empire from saying "surrender or we'll reduce all 150 of your major worlds to slag in 12 hours" and being able to deliver on that threat?

And how would the Empire carry out said slagging? ISDs? Death Stars? So I can offer possible Fed defenses.

Split 150 ISDs from the fleet and send one to each of the Federation's 150 planets. Approach in hyperspace, drop into realspace in low orbit (as close as one planetary diameter out) and commence bombardment with HTLs. The first salvo already contains enough energy to cause a mass-extinction event on the surface, and a modest spread of warheads armed for stratospheric detonation will create an ionization shockwave in the upper atmosphere that EMPs virtually everything on the surface over the entire facing hemisphere. The planet is facing billions of casualties after the attack is less than 60 seconds old. At this point, engage any starships and/or starbases in orbit, prior to resuming bombardment of the surface in order to wipe out any survivors.

No superweapons are necessary.

Shit. Um...Tom Paris' Warp 10 engine strapped to Omega bombs? Can I? Pretty please? (pouting) No fair. You brought better...(sound of turbolaser explaining the rules of war).

[Howedar]

That didn't make a lot of sense.

To clarify: if, say, the Caretaker array were extraordinarily efficient in that all energy it gave off was in a very narrow beam to/from where the ship was (or was going), it might not be found for some time.

Sure it would. The Empire is not above the use of torture to obtain information.

An intelligent enemy would not tell every guy and their dog the location of such a facility.

Of course, we are talking about the Federation.

[Darth Wong]

Trajector conceded.

I take back all of the mean things I ever said about your debating style

I think of the self-amplification like Data's self-recharging batteries. The wave must have been drawing energy from some outside source. But there's so much technobabble there I'm not interested in speculating as to what source that could be. My point was that he probably wasn't completely wrong about its power increasing (especially when the E-D was there to confirm the readings) and being a risk to the planet.

Actually, there was a very interesting thread about the soliton wave a while ago on the board. The gist of it was that the best explanation was a narrowing "channel" in subspace. Imagine a water wave moving through a channel which gets narrower over distance. The wave will necessarily get taller to compensate. Now, take this same phenomenon and apply it to the soliton wave; a soliton wave is defined as one which is confined in a conduit, so we already know that the technology depends on some kind of channel confinement. If this channel's walls spread out over distance, the wave dissipates and peters out. If the channel's walls narrow over distance, the wave becomes more and more intense. From the perspective of an observer close to the centre of the channel, it appears as if the wave is actually becoming more powerful, but he does not realize that it's really just getting "narrower and taller," so to speak. When you set off a bunch of torpedoes, it disrupts the channel, and the wave dissipates.

I should have been a Trek writer. I could have made sense out of their bullshit.

I see no point in even mentioning any of this tech if it can't be used with similar reliability as a photorp or phaser bank.

I wasn't talking about its reliability; I was talking about your contention that SW sensors would be unable to detect its approach (not that it would make a difference either way).

I don't mean a single array. I mean the tech, mass-produced (within the limits of 24th century Fed industrial capacity, and assuming they know how).

Whoa, capturing something and being able to mass-produce it are two entirely different things.

They never used it again because it pushed them to a point where they couldn't get back to it. They didn't take the catapult with them and then throw it away. It launched them as far as it could, and was then no longer available to them because of the distance.

Ah, I see. Thank you.

But what use is it if they launch themselves from it and can't carry it with them? I could see it being handy for cutting a few years off the trip home (which is precisely what it was used for in the show), but not in the context of this thread.

I didn't say the Voth tech could be captured (nothing Voth could be captured - Voyager couldn't even fire a shot at them). I was proposing that the Voth scientist who was pushing the Distant Origin theory could give or sell Voyager his ship's schematics, since he considers Earth his homeworld and his government let him have a nice private farewell conversation with Chakotay on his ship.

Ahh, I see where you're going now. However, I must remind you again that even with schematics, one is not necessarily capable of reproducing something. Give the schematics for a modern computer to Ben Franklin, and what's he going to do with them? Capturing his ship would give them one high-velocity platform (do you know how fast they are?) which might give them the ability to launch torpedoes at range, but it wouldn't make a dent in the Empire's ability to wipe the Federation from existence, the threat of which would force a surrender.

Barclay had to modify the E-D's systems to generate the "spatial rift" he used to visit the Cytherians. The Traveler's statement about the power of thought may not be accurate but more of a religious sentiment (I find his statement laughable taken literally).

It's no more laughable than a lot of other things in Trek.

They may only be true of his race and a few humans like Wesley. Even if they are, Q-junior still said he was using the shuttle's deflector. And if it's a matter of thought, why didn't Q senior use this thought-power to escape the Calamarain when they tortured him?

Thought interacting with a warp drive.

IIRC, he had a shuttle available just before one of the attacks too.

Not all shuttles have warp drive.

Bottom line: The Traveller's sentiments are about as ludicrous as the Force. I accept the Force only because its creator makes it clear that the Force is literally and universally real in Wars. There's more leeway where the Traveller's statement is concerned.

I agree that there's leeway, but do you have a better explanation for why these feats are irreproducible, other than simply postulating that they don't even try? I could almost buy the "didn't even try" explanation for the Enterprise (hell, maybe the Citherians made Barclay wipe the records), but for Voyager? Stranded in the delta quadrant?

Shit. Um...Tom Paris' Warp 10 engine strapped to Omega bombs? Can I? Pretty please? (pouting) No fair. You brought better...(sound of turbolaser explaining the rules of war).

Sorry, but when the gloves come off, the gloves come off. Nobody's better at "ruthless" than the Empire

[Metrion Cascade]

I fucking hate this. Lucas' approach to sci-fi makes half of his tech unassailable by anything (it does incredible feats, but you can't find weaknesses because no effort is made to explain its workings). Meanwhile the fucking Force is essentially magic, and answers to nothing. Not logic, not technology, not any laws of physics. It basically does whatever will serve the story best. I need to come up with a race the way Lucas did - all wanktech and storyline, no explanations.

[Darth Wong]

I fucking hate this. Lucas' approach to sci-fi makes half of his tech unassailable by anything (it does incredible feats, but you can't find weaknesses because no effort is made to explain its workings). Meanwhile the fucking Force is essentially magic, and answers to nothing. Not logic, not technology, not any laws of physics. It basically does whatever will serve the story best. I need to come up with a race the way Lucas did - all wanktech and storyline, no explanations.

Come now, the Empire's biggest advantages here have nothing to do with wanktech, and everything to do with sheer scale. Their ships are fast enough for quick pan-galactic travel and powerful enough so that a really big one can blow up planets. The Federation is weaker by necessity because it's smaller.

Really monstrous civilizations like the Shi'Ar from Marvel Comics or some of the real wank-tech sci-fi universes found in books (eg- The Culture) can easily stomp the Empire. The Empire's special abilities can be summed up as "lots of troops, go fast, hit hard". I don't really consider that wank-tech.