How to defeat an ISD with Starfleet Resources

[Ghost Rider]

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?

A completely alien technolog, let alone the power generation needs. Might as well be giving Da Vinci an engine made in 3010 from Martians.

[Sarevok]

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

Hyperdrive is totaly alien technology to the Federation. They cant implement it without someone explaining the principles behind it in detail.

[Tribun]

To say it a bit more drastic:

The civilisation of the SW galaxy has already completed the understanding of all physics eons ago, while the Feds were only somewhere on the way, not very far.
The Feds can't build something which basics they couldn't understand.

[Sarevok]

To say it a bit more drastic:

The civilisation of the SW galaxy has already completed the understanding of all physics eons ago, while the Feds were only somewhere on the way, not very far.
The Feds can't build something which basics they couldn't understand.

Even if the Feds understood how a hyperdrive works they would still need exotic components they cant manufacture to build a hyperdrive.

[Darth Wong]

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

Hyperdrive is totaly alien technology to the Federation. They cant implement it without someone explaining the principles behind it in detail.

To be more specific, according to the ICS hyperdrive actually makes a starship go tachyonic, and manages the "complex mass" of the ship in the process, presumably also requiring management of imaginary time. Warp drive does not do this; it warps spacetime in order to simulate the effect of superluminal travel without actually achieving it. So, the leap from warp drive to hyperdrive is somewhat like the leap from present-day space travel to warp drive.

[revprez]

A completely alien technolog, let alone the power generation needs. Might as well be giving Da Vinci an engine made in 3010 from Martians.

That's just reasserting the original objection; presuming that the physics available to Federation humans is insufficient to deal with the problem of hyperdrive. What additional physics do you need to explain hyperdrive that you don't have with warp drives?

Rev Prez

[revprez]

To be more specific, according to the ICS hyperdrive actually makes a starship go tachyonic, and manages the "complex mass" of the ship in the process, presumably also requiring management of imaginary time. Warp drive does not do this; it warps spacetime in order to simulate the effect of superluminal travel without actually achieving it. So, the leap from warp drive to hyperdrive is somewhat like the leap from present-day space travel to warp drive.

Okay, that's a stronger objection. I'm not so sure whether or not the leap would be from present-day space travel to implementing warp drive; after all, even a tachyon imaging hypersurface (assuming one could be made) shares a number of features with other solutions like the warp metric, but it may be a sufficient departure that decades if not centuries would be required to reverse engineer the system (it took decades for Earth to put together sufficient competence to build its Warp 5 engine, after all).

Rev Prez

[Wild Karrde]

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?

Yes but any cargo ship sent to the front would either be able to fend for itself or have an escort.

What about detached corvettes or frigates?

What about them?

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

Well for starters it's completly alien technology for which they have no reference or guide to, the power demand for hyperspace jumps is beyond their grasp, they don't have the exotic materials to build one, they can't even understand and implement transwarp onto their ships even after having it for over eighty years, and finally the Feds ships wouldn't be able to take the strain of traveling millions of times C when their ships can't go faster then several thousand C.

[Lancer]

To be more specific, according to the ICS hyperdrive actually makes a starship go tachyonic, and manages the "complex mass" of the ship in the process, presumably also requiring management of imaginary time. Warp drive does not do this; it warps spacetime in order to simulate the effect of superluminal travel without actually achieving it. So, the leap from warp drive to hyperdrive is somewhat like the leap from present-day space travel to warp drive.

Okay, that's a stronger objection. I'm not so sure whether or not the leap would be from present-day space travel to implementing warp drive; after all, even a tachyon imaging hypersurface (assuming one could be made) shares a number of features with other solutions like the warp metric, but it may be a sufficient departure that decades if not centuries would be required to reverse engineer the system (it took decades for Earth to put together sufficient competence to build its Warp 5 engine, after all).

Rev Prez

If not for the constant diplomatic interference of the Vulcans, Earth would have been able to develop their warp 5 engine in much less time.

[HRogge]

If not for the constant diplomatic interference of the Vulcans, Earth would have been able to develop their warp 5 engine in much less time.

The warp 5 engine was "only" a problem of engineering... Earth understood the theory of warp flight, they just had to improve their engines.

The hyperdrive would be something else... a device working on unknown principles with an energy ouput much higher than anything the Federation ever built. It's not even likely that the Federation have the sensor equipment to measure the effect of an hyperspace jump completely.

[Tribun]

So let's summary the problems of the Feds:

-Thier engeneering abilities are to low.
-Thier understanding of physics is too low.
-Thier industrial capacity and technical advancment are too low.
-They would have problems to capture the ship, it would be impossible.
-If they would capture the ship, they couldn't use it because they:
*Wouldn't know how to control it.
*The writing is totally alien to them.
-It wouldn't be any advantage for them.
-The needed force to capture the ship would outweight the usefullness.

[Lancer]

If not for the constant diplomatic interference of the Vulcans, Earth would have been able to develop their warp 5 engine in much less time.

The warp 5 engine was "only" a problem of engineering... Earth understood the theory of warp flight, they just had to improve their engines.

The hyperdrive would be something else... a device working on unknown principles with an energy ouput much higher than anything the Federation ever built. It's not even likely that the Federation have the sensor equipment to measure the effect of an hyperspace jump completely.

I never said anything about hyperdrive. I was correcting the impression that Earth would have taken that long to complete the Warp 5 engine if the Vulcans hadn't put diplomatic pressure on Earth to slow down or abandon the project.

[HRogge]

I never said anything about hyperdrive. I was correcting the impression that Earth would have taken that long to complete the Warp 5 engine if the Vulcans hadn't put diplomatic pressure on Earth to slow down or abandon the project.

I thought the Humans were angry because they could have been FASTER with the help of the Vulcans. I'm not sure if the Vulcans slowed them down ( I have watched Enterprise only once ).

[Darth Wong]

You know, one question that needs to be asked is what incentive the Feds have to do something like this. Reverse-engineering of totally alien technology is not something that will give them an edge in the near future. Simply attempting to use the ship against the Imperials is a waste of time; one ISD against many is a losing proposition. And they would lose most of their remaining forces in this battle.

In fact, with the Feds being reduced to what is effectively a terrorist organization similar to the Iraqi insurgence right now, the idea of a large co-ordinated assault on a single target is simply insane. You don't do that kind of thing when your forces are essentially in hiding, having been driven off the major populated worlds already.

I know that in movies, a terrorist group will often try these kinds of "daring operations" to hit some major military target, but that simply isn't realistic terrorist operating procedure. Terrorists are far more likely to strike for destructive effect against relatively soft targets, with the aim of sheer destruction and impact on morale rather than theft of a valuable item or capture of a particular target.

[Robert Walper]

You know, one question that needs to be asked is what incentive the Feds have to do something like this. Reverse-engineering of totally alien technology is not something that will give them an edge in the near future. Simply attempting to use the ship against the Imperials is a waste of time; one ISD against many is a losing proposition. And they would lose most of their remaining forces in this battle.

In fact, with the Feds being reduced to what is effectively a terrorist organization similar to the Iraqi insurgence right now, the idea of a large co-ordinated assault on a single target is simply insane. You don't do that kind of thing when your forces are essentially in hiding, having been driven off the major populated worlds already.

I know that in movies, a terrorist group will often try these kinds of "daring operations" to hit some major military target, but that simply isn't realistic terrorist operating procedure. Terrorists are far more likely to strike for destructive effect against relatively soft targets, with the aim of sheer destruction and impact on morale rather than theft of a valuable item or capture of a particular target.

Well, the thread was nothing more than an attempt to see if persons here could get the Federation force to accomplish the objective by whatever means available, by proposing practical plans and scenarios that might work with the given resources. As to the layout and practical nature of the OP scenario itself, seems kind of a side issue, although you're of correct in pointing out how the mission objective itself is of virtually no tactical or strategic value.

Perhaps we could just submit the idea of them intenting to simply capture the target and retreat, wanting only to gain at least something from the loss of the Federation.

[Tribun]

I think the point of this debate is now not longer existant....