How to defeat an ISD with Starfleet Resources

[Durandal]

Well I seem to recall a technology in the episode "booby trap" was it? Where the more power you used the more these devices in an asteroid field would absorb your energy and bombard you with radiation.

Now, there may be limits on how much energy they could reasonable absorb, but given the outrageous power generation of an ISD, they may very well kill themselves if attempting to escape from such a trap.

Just because you have a mirror doesn't mean that you can reflect a 5 MW laser and prevent yourself from being melted. The power generation technology on the ISD is orders of magnitude beyond anything the Federation could ever dream of. The device would be handily destroyed if it tried to gobble up the power output of the ISD.

[Wild Karrde]

A distress signal wouldn't work, the ISD would power up it's shields and most likely weapons too due to it being called out to help and probably be ready for whatever awaited it.

[Patrick Degan]

Well I seem to recall a technology in the episode "booby trap" was it? Where the more power you used the more these devices in an asteroid field would absorb your energy and bombard you with radiation.

Now, there may be limits on how much energy they could reasonable absorb, but given the outrageous power generation of an ISD, they may very well kill themselves if attempting to escape from such a trap.

If the feds could duplicate this technology, this would be the best way to take down an ISD as you use its own strength against it.

There'd be the question of getting the ISD in the right spot for the trap, but that might not prove too difficult. Perhaps a distress signal inside a large asteroid field(as the original trap was) thus making the ISD itself the only practical vehicle to carry out a rescue operation.

Ideally, the ISD would fire up it's engines, try to ecape and kill the entire crew(presumeably in a reason timeframe, with communications jammed/disabled).

Um, nope:

TNG Season 3, Ep# 54: "Booby Trap"

GEORDI: Okay, we know for every movement the Enterprise makes, there's a counter-movement from the energy field... could we use that to our advantage somehow...

LEAH: Maybe. There must be a time differential between the force and counter-force response ... if we could make quick, continuing adjustments in the linkups before the counterforce reacts, we might just be able to move this bucket...

GEORDI: Yes... Propulsion: if the field applies a reaction counter-force delayed by a brief instant, then the ship would only accelerate forward for the duration of that brief instant before being brought back to a stop.

In theory, they could move, but only in a staccato fashion. We discovered later that the field had no effect whatsoever on maneuvering thrusters, so they could have simply used their thrusters to push their way out. However, they apparently didn't have any thrusters pointing directly aft, and they weren't imaginative enough to rotate the ship and then push it out sideways.

The Menthar booby trap and its interaction with the Enterprise seem like a good example of over-optimization. It is an historical fact that military technologies tend to become optimized for similar opponents; in other words, armies expect to fight enemies who are like themselves, and they design their weapons accordingly. The Cold War US Army was a good example of this problem; they were equipped for a massive conventional war against the USSR, and found themselves ill-equipped to deal with the sort of complex situations encountered in the sort of policing and political intervention operations that they were called upon to handle in Vietnam, Somalia, and Bosnia.

In this case, the Menthar booby trap appears to feed off the energies generated by warp and impulse drives (both of which rely on technobabble subspace fields). This would suggest that it somehow draws power from those fields, and that a non-subspace propulsion system would be unaffected. In other words, a primitive rocket would have easily escaped.

Imperial drive technology is not based upon subspace fields. The Menthar trap, as seen in the episode in question, leached the Enterprise's power through the ship's own subspace field. In effect, subspace-based technology is what opens the pathway for the energy-sink. Suffice to say, this should not affect an ISD at all; it's power-sources are sealed within the ship in a closed-circuit and the vessel is propelled through normal space by brute force reaction drives.

Furthermore, it is illogical to assume, even if such a trap were somehow successfully set up, that an Imperial captain would not stand off and send in scout craft or probedroids to investigate a distress signal source instead of ploughing in blindly with his ship.

In any case, the aceton-assimilator trap idea is a nonstarter to begin with. No records of the design exist and the only known working examples were destroyed along with the last vessel it caught in the trap zone, and is therefore lost technology.

[FOG3]

Problem is capturing a vessel with a very large crew complement that is well defended and you don't know to operate. Now if we were asked how to give the Imperial force a bloody nose and maybe a broken bone or two with those resources then we might have something. A Genesis Mk2 device was specified in the OP, if it's improvements were in the right area this could be devastating. The original turned a gas Nebula into a planet and a star I think because I don't remember there being a star there before. Anyways it changed lighter elelments into heavier elements in a rather orderly fashion. It was only instability in the process that resulted in that planet blowing up. Now if you improved that effect in the right areas you should be able to make fleets of ships by the same process.

So if I wanted to make the Empire regret invading UFP space I'd first have my engineers redesign the Defiant class to create a new class of vessel that was completely computer controlled and consequently smaller. I'd then program the Genisis Mk 2 to make as many of those as it could with available mass, build a few of the Genesis Mk2 devices, and start deploying them in gas giants, big nebulas, or other big masses. I suppose theoretically if I was doing this and sending these fleets in very large swarms at the Imperial Navy I could give them enough problems they might actually be able to beat up a ISD given half a chance and tow it away, but really Star Fleet just doesn't seem to have the proper resources to be capturing a vessel that large.

Of course, that flight of fancy requires the Genesis Mk2, which shouldn't even exist as it's lost tech, to be able to actually make functional war ships from gas giants and the like.

[GySgt. Hartman]

Anyways it changed lighter elelments into heavier elements in a rather orderly fashion.

Yes, you could make lumps of metal, but starships? That is a long jump from there.

[FOG3]

True enough. That's why I refer to as a flight of fancy and it needing improvements in the right areas for it to be able to really pull that off. Still I find it a entertaining thought.

[Robert Walper]

Um, nope:

TNG Season 3, Ep# 54: "Booby Trap"

GEORDI: Okay, we know for every movement the Enterprise makes, there's a counter-movement from the energy field... could we use that to our advantage somehow...

LEAH: Maybe. There must be a time differential between the force and counter-force response ... if we could make quick, continuing adjustments in the linkups before the counterforce reacts, we might just be able to move this bucket...

GEORDI: Yes... Propulsion: if the field applies a reaction counter-force delayed by a brief instant, then the ship would only accelerate forward for the duration of that brief instant before being brought back to a stop.

In theory, they could move, but only in a staccato fashion. We discovered later that the field had no effect whatsoever on maneuvering thrusters, so they could have simply used their thrusters to push their way out. However, they apparently didn't have any thrusters pointing directly aft, and they weren't imaginative enough to rotate the ship and then push it out sideways.

The Menthar booby trap and its interaction with the Enterprise seem like a good example of over-optimization. It is an historical fact that military technologies tend to become optimized for similar opponents; in other words, armies expect to fight enemies who are like themselves, and they design their weapons accordingly. The Cold War US Army was a good example of this problem; they were equipped for a massive conventional war against the USSR, and found themselves ill-equipped to deal with the sort of complex situations encountered in the sort of policing and political intervention operations that they were called upon to handle in Vietnam, Somalia, and Bosnia.

In this case, the Menthar booby trap appears to feed off the energies generated by warp and impulse drives (both of which rely on technobabble subspace fields). This would suggest that it somehow draws power from those fields, and that a non-subspace propulsion system would be unaffected. In other words, a primitive rocket would have easily escaped.

Imperial drive technology is not based upon subspace fields. The Menthar trap, as seen in the episode in question, leached the Enterprise's power through the ship's own subspace field. In effect, subspace-based technology is what opens the pathway for the energy-sink. Suffice to say, this should not affect an ISD at all; it's power-sources are sealed within the ship in a closed-circuit and the vessel is propelled through normal space by brute force reaction drives.

Furthermore, it is illogical to assume, even if such a trap were somehow successfully set up, that an Imperial captain would not stand off and send in scout craft or probedroids to investigate a distress signal source instead of ploughing in blindly with his ship.

In any case, the aceton-assimilator trap idea is a nonstarter to begin with. No records of the design exist and the only known working examples were destroyed along with the last vessel it caught in the trap zone, and is therefore lost technology.

Well, I wouldn't pursue that tactic then since it seems highly unlikely to be successful and furthermore said trap was destroyed. And as you said we have no direct evidence the Federation could replicate it.

[Sharp-kun]

What good would capturing an ISD do the Feds in this scenario? They can't replicate the tech, and 1 ISD is nowhere near enough to make them even a minor threat.

[revprez]

Why go after an ISD? Why not capture something smaller and packing a hell of a lot less firepower?

Rev Prez

[HRogge]

Why go after an ISD? Why not capture something smaller and packing a hell of a lot less firepower?

An imperial cargo shuttle might be a good start to capture a hyperdrive.

[Robert Walper]

Guys, the point of the thread was whether or not the objective was feasible. You're dwelling into the practical application of the captured ISD assuming the mission is successful, which isn't the point.

[revprez]

Guys, the point of the thread was whether or not the objective was feasible. You're dwelling into the practical application of the captured ISD assuming the mission is successful, which isn't the point.

I'm not dwelling on the wealth of information you could get from a star destroyer captured intact. I'm wondering what could the Federation possibly learn from an ISD that they couldn't learn from a frigate or something else smaller.

Rev Prez

[Alyeska]

Put up or shutup Patrick Degan. You made a dumbass claim about Robert and myself. Either defend it or retract it.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Spanky is obviously correct - we can conclude that by the NR era, CGTs are much more rarely found than at the height of the New Order. Clearly it wasn't impossible to mass distribute them if needed at that time.

Gravitic sensors were standard aboard the Bothan Assault Cruiser NRS Ralroost in the Dark Tide Duology. They were expected to find anything larger than a coralskipper throughout the system.

[Patrick Degan]

Put up or shutup Patrick Degan. You made a dumbass claim about Robert and myself. Either defend it or retract it.

I'd say pages six and seven of this thread pretty much demonstrate the point —especially where you're in pell-mell denial of evidence inconvenient to you and Walper's threadbare argument about using transporters to space the ISD's crew or capture the ship's key officers.

Ridicule some people over their defective logic, and they get soooo touchy...

[Alyeska]

Put up or shutup Patrick Degan. You made a dumbass claim about Robert and myself. Either defend it or retract it.

I'd say pages six and seven of this thread pretty much demonstrate the point —especially where you're in pell-mell denial of evidence inconvenient to you and Walper's threadbare argument about using transporters to space the ISD's crew or capture the ship's key officers.

Ridicule some people over their defective logic, and they get soooo touchy...

Find where I said that you can space the ISDs crew with transporters. Go ahead. Please point that out. It would interest me greatly.

[Patrick Degan]

Just determined to be a little asshole on this, aren't you?

Put up or shutup Patrick Degan. You made a dumbass claim about Robert and myself. Either defend it or retract it.

I'd say pages six and seven of this thread pretty much demonstrate the point —especially where you're in pell-mell denial of evidence inconvenient to you and Walper's threadbare argument about using transporters to space the ISD's crew or capture the ship's key officers.

Ridicule some people over their defective logic, and they get soooo touchy...

Find where I said that you can space the ISDs crew with transporters. Go ahead. Please point that out. It would interest me greatly.

This is what Walper said:

My scenario suggested utilizing transporter technology to transport the enemy crew into space. They could acquire captives this way as well. Transporters have clearly been shown capable of removing weaponry and even clothing from transported targets.

And

Yes, acquiring captives via the transporters implied they'd be transported out into space before being transported into brigs or interrogation facilities.

The transporting of enemy units into space is merely the means to deal with the bulk of the crew without having to fight them.

And this is you in support of that argument:

FYI, Trek transporters will have relatively little problem beaming through the hull of the ISD.

Reason? In "Think Tank" VGR Voyager was able to beam through a neutronium alloy hull. Trying to claim the hull of an ISD will block Trek transporters is a red herring attempt. Knock it off.

And here's you in denial of inconvenient evidence which didn't suit you:

FYI, Trek transporters will have relatively little problem beaming through the hull of the ISD.

Reason? In "Think Tank" VGR Voyager was able to beam through a neutronium alloy hull. Trying to claim the hull of an ISD will block Trek transporters is a red herring attempt. Knock it off.

Oh yes, of a ship whose hull was as thick as a can...

Irrelevent. I haven't seen any proof that the neutronium element in the ISDs is of any great value.

And

FYI, Trek transporters will have relatively little problem beaming through the hull of the ISD.

Reason? In "Think Tank" VGR Voyager was able to beam through a neutronium alloy hull. Trying to claim the hull of an ISD will block Trek transporters is a red herring attempt. Knock it off.

Oh right, why couldn't they beam through certain alloy bulkheads in TNG? Why couldn't they beam through electrical interference?

What the hell is a "neutronium alloy" anyway? Looks like you're just looking for a cheap excuse to dismiss years of Trek precedent.

Voyager beamed Seven off the think tank. That place had a neutronium hull. THAT is precedence.

Furthermore Trek can beam through most interference, the problem typicaly comes from getting a lock. Its easier to beam in then it is beam out.

You have to prove the SW hull can stop transporters. Burden of proof lies on you. Trek transporters work most of the time and only special circumstances have stopped them from working.

And

Voyager beamed Seven off the think tank. That place had a neutronium hull. THAT is precedence.

Furthermore Trek can beam through most interference, the problem typicaly comes from getting a lock. Its easier to beam in then it is beam out.

You have to prove the SW hull can stop transporters. Burden of proof lies on you. Trek transporters work most of the time and only special circumstances have stopped them from working.

Alyeska, transporters are -- based on precedent -- at least as likely to fail as to succeed in a crisis.

Bad weather blocks them; shields block them; "transport inhibitors" (whatever they do) block them; magnetic fields block them; tractor beams block them; natural minerals that aren't even in the path of the beam block them; sunspots block them.

Who cares if they managed to beam Torres or Seven through a neutronium alloy hull on one occasion? There are so many adverse conditions around an ISD (with thick hulls, sensor jamming, shielding, unknown particles and radiation from weapon fire, etc.) that it's virtually a foregone conclusion that Federation ships won't have anything close to normal transporter function.

Transporters have only failed on RARE OCASSION. And most of those failures didn't come from not being able to transport, but not being able to lock on. Atmospheric storms make transporter locks difficult, but people can still beam down. Two know materials have blocked transporters, materials you can't prove SW has. Specific built inhibitors work, something SW won't have because they don't have transporters.

And list these adverse conditions and why something around the engine room would prevent someone from beaming in the hanger bays.

Transporters can and do work in combat situations. Furthermore access to long range subspace transporters changes things inredibly. These can be used by cloaked ships and can pass right through shields. Or did anyone not pay attention to my stipulation this technology is available?

And

Yep. The burden of proof lies at ST.
They must proof that thier transporter works through materials and conditions, and that also as normal occurance, not the one-time thing.

I have not seen anything listed on an ISD that can stop transporters. People claimed hull thickness without prooving such restrictions have stopped transporters. People claim neutronium and I proved that wrong. You have to come up with possible things to stop the transporter. Burden of proof lies on you.

And

Neutronium is not solid. THAT is fact. So whatever neutronium was in this hull was either interstitial or simply an error.

Neutronium also doesn't go into allows. So shall we toss out SW neutronium as well?

Proof? I have cited numerous incidents in which interference stopped Trek transporters cold. Simply saying "it's not the transporters; it's the sensors" is not much of a theory unless you have some particular evidence to back that up.

In all of those instances they have tried beaming people OUT. Beaming through interference is much easier to do. Hell, Kelvenite and Transport Inhibitors didn't prevent beaming, they prevented transporter locks.

Wrong; Trek transporters have been shown to be incapable of transporting through certain types of materials even used on Federation ships. Explain that, given your insistence that no materials can block them.

I never said that. I said that transporters have worked most of the time and only SPECIAL circumstances have prevented them from working. The USS Vico incident was when the beam was litteraly on top of the kid. It didn't stop them from beaming out a couple meters away. Kelvenite never prevented transporting, it only disrupted the locks.

Special circumstances such as dense metals and high levels of interference, both of which are present in this case. Burden of proof is on you to show why neither would cause a problem here.

Interference only prevent locks to beam out. Dense metals is an assumption on your part. We already know that they can and have beamed through ship hulls involving neotronium, and thats as dense and you can get.

And

Just a thought.

It would probably help the debate if all known transporter difficulty examples are compiled, analyzed, and then compared to possible similarities in enviroment on an ISD. That would settle much of the debate.

And it carried on until Ted C listed quite a few TNG episodes where transporters were blocked or rendered ineffective, and Walper continued for two posts beyond that point. My little jibe came as that was still in process, then you got your shot in, and I thought that was the end of that minor exchange until you decided to be an asshole tonight. And now I've quoted your own posts on the matter.

Linky

Linky

Linky

So you can just drop the attitude.

[Alyeska]

Way to go dumbass. You proved me right.

I never made that claim. I was discussing the transporter issue and presenting ideas. I also pointed out that beaming in would be infintely easier then beaming out (which others proved to be not so true) and if you put 2 and 2 together would realize I wasn't supporting removal of the crew. And then again their is the fact that I outright stopped pushing the transporter issue alltogether. All of this ignored by you.

Care to troll some more Pat?

[Patrick Degan]

Way to go dumbass. You proved me right.

If that's the view in your delusional little fantasy world, so be it.

I never made that claim.

Did you even bother reading the original two posts? I said Walper and you and in fairly general terms in regards to that part of the thread. Exactly how simple do I have to make this for you?

I was discussing the transporter issue and presenting ideas. I also pointed out that beaming in would be infintely easier then beaming out (which others proved to be not so true) and if you put 2 and 2 together would realize I wasn't supporting removal of the crew. And then again their is the fact that I outright stopped pushing the transporter issue alltogether. All of this ignored by you.

You never made your exact position clear other than to put forward a nice little fallacy which took two pages to be beaten down as you continued on and on and on in regards to an issue which has been argued at this site several dozen times already. At the time of your "last" posting on the issue, there was no way for me to know that it was indeed your final say on that part of the argument when I made the harmless little jibe which you're now making a total asshole of yourself over. Everybody else had moved on past that point except for you.

Care to troll some more Pat?

Sayeth the troll. Cute. You are the only one who's insisted on turning a jibe into a flamewar. You, Alyeska, are the one who is trolling here. Not Walper, not myself —YOU. You could have left it alone after your shot in reply which I didn't think worthwhile arguing against and moved on. Only you had to throw your little temper-tantrum instead.

So you can take that attitude of yours and shove it up your ass.

[Rogue 9]

How about we all calm down here? There's an idea. This isn't getting anybody anywhere except you two pissed off.

[Ghost Rider]

How about we all calm down here? There's an idea. This isn't getting anybody anywhere except you two pissed off.

And if it gets out of control...one of the MODS HoS it.

Currently it's between them about an issue Degan brought up against Alyeska in this particular topic. They are grown adults, and don't need CHIDING.

[Rogue 9]

Right, right.

[Ghost Rider]

And let's end it at that.

[Wild Karrde]

Why go after an ISD? Why not capture something smaller and packing a hell of a lot less firepower?

An imperial cargo shuttle might be a good start to capture a hyperdrive.

The thing is small ships like that would be deep inside Imperial occupied territory where's it's safe, leaving bigger and better defened ships to ferry cargo to the frontlines, hostile areas, etc.

The small cargo ships would never travel unescorted either, they's have Carracks, Neb-Bs, Victorys, etc. to defend them.

Even if the Feds somehow got a hyperdrive it's too advance for them to implement it. Not only do the lack power to run it but they'd never be able to reverse engineer it in enough time to make a difference (and that's if they can even understand in the first place)

[revprez]

The thing is small ships like that would be deep inside Imperial occupied territory where's it's safe, leaving bigger and better defened ships to ferry cargo to the frontlines, hostile areas, etc.

Isn't there a range of hull types between a cargo shuttle and an ISD that would find their way to the front for some reason?

The small cargo ships would never travel unescorted either, they's have Carracks, Neb-Bs, Victorys, etc. to defend them.

What about detached corvettes or frigates?

Even if the Feds somehow got a hyperdrive it's too advance for them to implement it.

How's that? They have sufficient physics to build and operate warp drives and other gravitic technology. What's so special about a hyperdrive?

Not only do the lack power to run it but they'd never be able to reverse engineer it in enough time to make a difference (and that's if they can even understand in the first place)

Considering the set up, 20 out of 150 star systems left to the Federation, I think losing the major combat operations phase of the war goes without saying.

Rev Prez