Hypothetical Situation: The Executor

[aussiemuscle308]

Let's say that during a routine patrol, the Enterprise-D comes across the Executor, floating adrift in space. They recover it for Starfleet. What would happen with an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer in the Federation's possession?

Discuss.

sounds like a good premise for a ST novel.

[FaxModem1]

Star Trek Hidden Frontier did an episode about it.

http://vimeo.com/1774395

[Boeing 757]

Now in hindsight, another question to dwell upon is how the other Alpha Quadrant powers will react to learning that their neighbor has somehow acquired a ship that outguns their entire massed fleets. The OP didn't specify which time-period this is, but it could be entertaining to witness what would happen in each.

[Lord Pounder]

I could see the Feddies getting good use out of the fighters on board. Sure bog standard TIE Fighters are nothing special but if the Executor Class is from later era Empire we it might Preybirds or even TIE Defenders, even a few squads of Interceptors could bring down a large Trek ship not even going in to what a few gunships or missile boats could manage.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Now in hindsight, another question to dwell upon is how the other Alpha Quadrant powers will react to learning that their neighbor has somehow acquired a ship that outguns their entire massed fleets. The OP didn't specify which time-period this is, but it could be entertaining to witness what would happen in each.

I cam imagine them demanding a share of the tech/knowledge they acquire, an interesting conundrum is, how far will the Federation go to appease their neighbours? They're terrified of the prospect of war and have a history of giving up strategic and tactical advantages for the sake of peace (Treaty of Algeron being the most obvious example). Would the Federation instead simply ignore calls from other races to share this new ship, since they can literally show the middle finger to anyone who complains and not worry about attacks since the ship can be anywhere in the Federation in minutes/hours and smash any attacking fleet without even breaking a sweat?

If the ship was found in a neutral region for example I can clearly see various AQ powers fighting each other for control and possibly going to war over it, under Starfleet control they would take every possible measure to make sure no-one else finds out about it for as long as possible (or at least until such time as they can make it fully operational), indeed making sure the general public and the likes of the Federation council be kept in the dark by classifying its very existence since the FC would probably be divided over what to do with the ship.

[Enigma]

How well would they be able to reverse engineer any of the tech onboard the Executor? If they can't seem to integrate any of the uber-tech they encounter (VOY:Endgame being somewhat different as it was Voyager receiving future Starfeet uber-tech).

Neverthless, if they could reverse engineer at least the power plant and be able to build a ST equivalent (highly enriched M/AM instead of hypermatter, perhaps?), it would give the UFP a big boost in its applications.

I'd love to see what the Executor could do if Starfleet was able to reverse engineer the Echo Papa 607 and integrate it into the Ex. >:)

Hell, develop pulse phasers or phaser emitters that can withstand huge amounts of power and replace the turbolasers with them. Overhaul their missile/torpedo bays to handle quantum torps. I assume the Ex can hold thousands of torps.

Now for something more realistic, the Ex will most likely end up as an ad hoc starbase and be mined for tech and scientific data for decades while the other major powers will clamor for a share of the data. The Borg on the other hand will see this as a sign to attack and try to either capture the Ex or destroy it.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I'd opt for the Scimitar's cloaking tech, since both shields and weapons would work while engaged. Whether this capability is due to the Remans somehow developing a better cloak or because the ship simply had more power available for cloak+weapons+shields is unknown.

I'd be more concerned with how long the Federation could keep the existence of the ship a secret, since it's likely the more information they manage to get out of it, the more likely it is that word would spread since they'd need more brains to study it, and Section 31 can't keep tabs on everyone.

[the atom]

I think one big concern that was briefly mentioned her would be the Borg. Come to think of it, that's probably the single largest concern Starfleet would have, with the other AQ powers nothing more then a minor peripheral issue by comparison. If the Borg caught wind of it and struck early before they could fully get it operational, it'd be the biggest 'fuck you I win forever' move in the history of the galaxy. If they assimilated hypermatter technology, the Borg have absolutely no reason not to turn every living in the galaxy into assimilation fodder and then turn their attention outwards. They'd simply be so far ahead of everything else that their whole 'technology farming' schtick would be worthless because they'd have to wait centuries for anybody else to come up with anything even remotely relevant.

[Boeing 757]

Even if they did happen to assimilate the technical knowhow of how hypermatter works, it may take them a very long time until they could duplicate a working hypermatter-powered ship, or even make it fully compatible with their current technology. If the Empire stands as high above them as I reckon that they do, they may encounter strict limits to how well they could carry out such a goal. Imagine for example if ninteenth-century Britain had found a deserted U.S. space shuttle lying in an open field somewhere, and were then tasked with building a working model from scratch. Not easy at all.

[avatarxprime]

True, but as pointed out by Skywalker_T-65, SW vessels can be configured to work with antimatter, it's just not nearly as safe and effective as hypermatter. So the Ex and any derived technologies are going to be power limited as a result of having to rely on antimatter, but just having access to the weapons, sensor, armor, and shield tech as a guideline of what is possible would allow them to produce massively superior versions of their existing systems. If we're focusing on the Borg, their resource base is one of the largest in the observed ST powers, so they'd best be able to make use of the technology found, especially if their assimilation tech allows them to instantly access and download all the data stored in the Ex's systems like they do with the AQ powers' computers.

[the atom]

Even if they did happen to assimilate the technical knowhow of how hypermatter works, it may take them a very long time until they could duplicate a working hypermatter-powered ship, or even make it fully compatible with their current technology. If the Empire stands as high above them as I reckon that they do, they may encounter strict limits to how well they could carry out such a goal. Imagine for example if ninteenth-century Britain had found a deserted U.S. space shuttle lying in an open field somewhere, and were then tasked with building a working model from scratch. Not easy at all.

So? It's not as if anybody is going to go traipsing off into the depth of the Delta Quadrant to smash up the Borg and get the ship back even if they wanted to. Standard cubes can already pretty much solo whole alpha quadrant fleets by themselves, so it's not like they don't have a literally unlimited timeframe to take the Executor apart to look at it's fiddly bits and figure out how it all works. It might take decades, but who cares? Not the Borg that's for sure.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Even if they did happen to assimilate the technical knowhow of how hypermatter works, it may take them a very long time until they could duplicate a working hypermatter-powered ship, or even make it fully compatible with their current technology. If the Empire stands as high above them as I reckon that they do, they may encounter strict limits to how well they could carry out such a goal. Imagine for example if ninteenth-century Britain had found a deserted U.S. space shuttle lying in an open field somewhere, and were then tasked with building a working model from scratch. Not easy at all.

So? It's not as if anybody is going to go traipsing off into the depth of the Delta Quadrant to smash up the Borg and get the ship back even if they wanted to. Standard cubes can already pretty much solo whole alpha quadrant fleets by themselves, so it's not like they don't have a literally unlimited timeframe to take the Executor apart to look at it's fiddly bits and figure out how it all works. It might take decades, but who cares? Not the Borg that's for sure.

Another concern is, if the Federation realise that the Borg has found out and are coming, how would they react? Take the ship and run if fighting is out of the question- it's not like the Borg are prone to taking hostages. They'd stand and fight if they can get it combat-ready; last resort would be to destroy the ship to keep it out of Borg hands, though no-one would want to lose all that tech. If the Borg realise what an asset the ship would be it's reasonable to assume they'll send as many cubes as they can spare. Having an SW-level ship will make the Borg prioritise assimilation of the Federation, thus even if the Borg don't get their hands on it they'll keep assimilating Federation ships/worlds until they find it.

[Boeing 757]

Even if they did happen to assimilate the technical knowhow of how hypermatter works, it may take them a very long time until they could duplicate a working hypermatter-powered ship, or even make it fully compatible with their current technology. If the Empire stands as high above them as I reckon that they do, they may encounter strict limits to how well they could carry out such a goal. Imagine for example if ninteenth-century Britain had found a deserted U.S. space shuttle lying in an open field somewhere, and were then tasked with building a working model from scratch. Not easy at all.

So? It's not as if anybody is going to go traipsing off into the depth of the Delta Quadrant to smash up the Borg and get the ship back even if they wanted to. Standard cubes can already pretty much solo whole alpha quadrant fleets by themselves, so it's not like they don't have a literally unlimited timeframe to take the Executor apart to look at it's fiddly bits and figure out how it all works. It might take decades, but who cares? Not the Borg that's for sure.

The Alpha Quadrant powers can't even reach Borg territory, for starters, so they're a non-factor. The Voth and S8472 however, are a much graver threat and seem to be superior to the Borg in many ways, enough so that at least the latter can penetrate Borg space whenever it wishes. And who knows, the Borg likely have many more enemies whom we've never seen before off screen that are technologically on par to them. Once they all learn that the Borg have seized a super-powerful ship that could tip the scale of power decisively in their favor, do you really think that they would just sit there idly for decades or centuries, and let it happen? Highly unlikely IMHO.

[Boeing 757]

Even if they did happen to assimilate the technical knowhow of how hypermatter works, it may take them a very long time until they could duplicate a working hypermatter-powered ship, or even make it fully compatible with their current technology. If the Empire stands as high above them as I reckon that they do, they may encounter strict limits to how well they could carry out such a goal. Imagine for example if ninteenth-century Britain had found a deserted U.S. space shuttle lying in an open field somewhere, and were then tasked with building a working model from scratch. Not easy at all.

So? It's not as if anybody is going to go traipsing off into the depth of the Delta Quadrant to smash up the Borg and get the ship back even if they wanted to. Standard cubes can already pretty much solo whole alpha quadrant fleets by themselves, so it's not like they don't have a literally unlimited timeframe to take the Executor apart to look at it's fiddly bits and figure out how it all works. It might take decades, but who cares? Not the Borg that's for sure.

Another concern is, if the Federation realise that the Borg has found out and are coming, how would they react? Take the ship and run if fighting is out of the question- it's not like the Borg are prone to taking hostages. They'd stand and fight if they can get it combat-ready; last resort would be to destroy the ship to keep it out of Borg hands, though no-one would want to lose all that tech. If the Borg realise what an asset the ship would be it's reasonable to assume they'll send as many cubes as they can spare. Having an SW-level ship will make the Borg prioritise assimilation of the Federation, thus even if the Borg don't get their hands on it they'll keep assimilating Federation ships/worlds until they find it.

That comes across as a rather reasonable scenario to me, actually. The Borg had supposedly sent hundreds of cubes to assimilate the homeworld of that alien who gave his ship equipped with quantum-slipstream drive to Voyager. Though if the Federation has the Executor ready and operational for combat--antimatter or hypermatter or not--I don't think the Borg will it seize it so easily.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Indeed- which begs the question- how many cubes would it take, and could the Borg send that many?

Given the unique nature of the ship, would the Borg Queen invent any tactics beyond "send every available cube", since you'd need to find some way of establishing an interdictor field to keep the ship from simply jumping to hyperspace to start with- it's doubtful the Borg would know enough about hyperdrive to figure out how to defeat it.

Assuming they did, for example by equipping each cube with an interdictor field, it becomes a question of whether the Borg can bring down its shields faster than the Executor can destroy every attacking cube. This will be determined in part by how effectively Starfleet can operate the ship and repair it as needed, but mostly as to the aformentioned issue of antimatter vs hypermatter since it affects how many turbolaser hits it would take to kill a cube and how many shots its shields can withstand.

[Boeing 757]

Indeed- which begs the question- how many cubes would it take, and could the Borg send that many?

I'm going to hazard a guess and say not too many, and against a ship like the Executor, it could be their undoing if they tried that. They've never shown themselves to be able to construct transwarp conduits from the other side of the Delta Quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant, and both times that they launched an attack on the Federation, they approached using warp drive. Presumably, it falls outside of their logistical abilities to move huge fleets quickly across the galaxy (unlike the Empire), otherwise it would not have taken them so long to reach Earth in BoBW and FC, and to come only with one ship each time when supposedly it should have been a cakewalk just to send two or three. The transwarp network by all mean seems to be a relatively recent investment meant to circumvent this limitation.

Given the unique nature of the ship, would the Borg Queen invent any tactics beyond "send every available cube", since you'd need to find some way of establishing an interdictor field to keep the ship from simply jumping to hyperspace to start with- it's doubtful the Borg would know enough about hyperdrive to figure out how to defeat it.

I guess they could always try a repeat of First Contact, and go back in time. Preferably into a period prior to the Federation discovering it.

[Solauren]

The Federation parks the ship over Earth. Earth is now the most secure planet in the galaxy.

The Borg go "Ya know, maybe humanity isn't worth assimilating.... Yet...."

Eventually, CHangeling infiltrators get onboard and blow the ship apart, possibly ruining Earth in the process.

[biostem]

I wonder if Starfleet would be clever enough to create an engineering hologram and use them to augment the people that they could afford to crew this behemoth with...

[FaxModem1]

That would a be a LOT of holo-projectors. They would have to have Starfleet engineers install and power those things all over the Executor, and that in itself would be a gargantuan task.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Like with the Prometheus but scaled up by a factor of at least a thousand. And the holograms won't be much use if there's damage since they won't be able to repair anything that's not covered by holoemitters.

[Batman]

Remember that by late VOY they were using holographic miners so blanketing large areas with holo-emitters isn't necessarily as hard as we think.

[LaCroix]

Remember that by late VOY they were using holographic miners so blanketing large areas with holo-emitters isn't necessarily as hard as we think.

This must be the worst possible waste of energy any author ever came up with...

[biostem]

Again, probably outside of Starfleet's thinking, but they have to hovering cart thingies - make one big enough to hold a holoprojector, computer, and mobile power source, and you could have the cart simply moved to wherever you needed the workers. You could then only actually install more permanent fixtures in key areas where you'd always need them - like the bridge, engine room, computer core, etc.

[Stark]

With such super technology, why would you be digging with space pickaxes anyway? We have fully automated mining systems right now, and in space it'd be even easier. We don't even have transporters or similar technologies that should arguably making mining absolutely trivial.

[FaxModem1]

It was really just the Federation finding some sort of use for a bunch of obsolete technology as the Mark I EMH was considered outdated and unpleasant to deal with by anyone who ever turned it on. So they decided to have the things mining for dilithium on some asteroid.

I don't think it's how the Federation normally mines for dilithium.