One Sovereign class starship in orbit around modern Earth

[RedImperator]

What a horrible way to die... probbly going to fire some torpedoes and phaser discharges down on the audience in the process too.

It's probably be something like this:

Miscellaneous user: What should we do now, capt'n?
Wong: *grins* BDZ
M: But capt'n, we don't have the power!
W: What is it with this piece of shit! Where the fuck's my Star Destroyer!

What IS it today with all the newbs running around going 'lOL sT sux0rs!'? Or is it that they are just so stupid ALL they can do is bash ST, thinking that Wong will reward them for their posts or something?

I've already banned it in PST. It's gotten on my nerves, too.

[18-Till-I-Die]

This is just like the ISD in orbit senario from that thread waaaay back. Basically, it's an upper-tier sci-fi ship, any nation who posseses it would rule the planet, and virtually no one could touch them, since they could glass your cities from orbit protected by energy shields and phasers. At least, thats how i see it.

[Frank Hipper]

Sure, getting a Soyuz or shuttle in the vicinity would be easy, but how the hell are you going to get onboard?
Yell "Open Sesame" at an airlock through the vacuum of space?

If computer security is compromised to the point it doesn't recognise intruders as a threat, breaching the hull for access (asuming it can be done) could possibly lead to the ship being as useful as a submarine with screendoors, in other words, will it react with force fields to a hull breach? And how the hell would you get through them?

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

An alien space capsule with a similar level of technology to us was able to activate a airlock on Voyager somehow.

[Alyrium Denryle]

That being asked, I think we would take over... There really isnt anything the US or any other country can field in order to challenge us...

With what -- how are you going to get into space in the first place?

The US government will seize that craft at the first opportunity, and from there we can begin to draw conclusions.

If you read the context of the post, you would note that I was responding to the 'everyone at sd.net transported aboard" bit.

The government cant seize the craft with us in it. Because we will shoot them....

[jegs2]

If you read the context of the post, you would note that I was responding to the 'everyone at sd.net transported aboard" bit.

The government cant seize the craft with us in it. Because we will shoot them....

Ok, my mistake.

[Kuja]

3, The Bridge gets AC/DC played in it.

HELL YEAH!

[Ma Deuce]

With the space shuttles currently on ice it should be possiple for the russians to launch from Baikonur long before the USA could launch a vehicle.
And I'm sure the EU would give them all the money they need.

Although the US has no manned vehicles ready for launch, ICBMs are a different matter. Given what that ship and it's technolegy can potentially offer to whoever gets it, I could see the US demanding a piece of the action, otherwise they send up dozens of Minuteman IIIs toward the Sovereign, so that nobody gets it. Conversly, the Russians make a similar threat with their own ICBMs, as a bargaining chip to ensure that if a joint recovery operation is launched, the Americans won't try to backstab them to steal the ship for themselves once onboard.

I doubt the Americans (or the Russians) would sit idly by while someone else gains such a huge strategic advantage over them. Hell, I certainly wouldn't...

[TempestMagister]

I am sure we can back-engineer all the good technology like FTL, and mass transporters, and then sooner or later, make a new ship utilizing the technology, and actually give the technology some more obvious uses.

[Chris OFarrell]

With the space shuttles currently on ice it should be possiple for the russians to launch from Baikonur long before the USA could launch a vehicle.
And I'm sure the EU would give them all the money they need.

Although the US has no manned vehicles ready for launch, ICBMs are a different matter. Given what that ship and it's technolegy can potentially offer to whoever gets it, I could see the US demanding a piece of the action, otherwise they send up dozens of Minuteman IIIs toward the Sovereign, so that nobody gets it. Conversly, the Russians make a similar threat with their own ICBMs, as a bargaining chip to ensure that if a joint recovery operation is launched, the Americans won't try to backstab them to steal the ship for themselves once onboard.

I doubt the Americans (or the Russians) would sit idly by while someone else gains such a huge strategic advantage over them. Hell, I certainly wouldn't...

What the hell IS it with everyone and shooting ICBM's at orbit targets?!

We don't HAVE a missile capable of reacing orbit and taking out a Starship. ICBM's are BALASTIC weapons, they barely reach LOW Earth Orbit before falling back to Earth. They lack targeting systems to track orbital targets and lack any kind of manouvering system to correct course.

And this isn't even assuming the computer doesn't simply raise the shields and shrug off any feasable attack.


Hehe. Really the best thing to do would probably be to grab Patrick Stewart, open a chanel to the Starship and have Steward say
"Computer this is Capitan Jen'Luc Picard. Activate cargo transporters and beam a Class Nine shuttle to my location. Authorisation Picard, Four Seven Alpha Tango *his code in ST-FC*.

*Shuttle is beamed down*

"Raise shields and maintain active scans for any inbound missile. If detected, change orbital altitude and path as necessary to evade"

And then they drag him onto the Shuttle and up to the ship, then have him give full access to the Commando Team that comes with him.

And pray George W Bush doesn't decide to start blowing up countries with it...

[Sarevok]

It would be hard to hide something like that from the public (lots of telescopes out there), so my guess is that NASA would get a jump start and the US would send a shuttle up there to investigate the thing. The government would swarm it as soon as they figured out how to get life-support systems online. Then everything would become highly classified, and we would hear little more than rumor about it for many years.

According to the Voyger episode Futures End shields can be remodulated to reflect light in such way as to make them very difficult to detect with telescope. This was what Voyger did when she arrived in orbit around Earth in 1996 in that episode. If the people capturing the Sovereign can figure this out they could keep the ship undetected.

[Shadowhawk]

Better question, what happens if one Sovereign class Starship appears around modern Earth....with the population of SD.net on board, the Mods having computer access privalges for primary systems and Wong having superuser privalges?

And say the holodecks were shut down so no holosex

What the hell would we do? COuld we even agree?

Clearly, the first order of business is to get the holodecks working again.

[NecronLord]

Hehe. Really the best thing to do would probably be to grab Patrick Stewart, open a chanel to the Starship and have Steward say
"Computer this is Capitan Jen'Luc Picard. Activate cargo transporters and beam a Class Nine shuttle to my location. Authorisation Picard, Four Seven Alpha Tango *his code in ST-FC*.

*Shuttle is beamed down*

"Raise shields and maintain active scans for any inbound missile. If detected, change orbital altitude and path as necessary to evade"

And then they drag him onto the Shuttle and up to the ship, then have him give full access to the Commando Team that comes with him.

And pray George W Bush doesn't decide to start blowing up countries with it...

Classic.

[Xon]

I wouldn't really call Jordie a newb, he's been here for over a year already. Although, his post could have used a bit more substance and a little less brown nosing...

Newbie-ness isnt so much defined as how long someone has been here. We do have some guy around here with the title 'perpetual-newbie' for a reason.

[Xon]

The best thing we would have going for us in this situation is the computer is generally smart enough to figure out a request spoking in a natural language. Remember, the holodoc who knew exactly jack about command a federation starship flew the thing into battle with voice commands.

All someone with flight control has todo is say "Computer, move us into a higher orbit" and any attempt at gaining access from Earth without permisions would be a bust.

As for figuring out the technology, that is going to be hidiously hard. It operates on completely different princibles than anything we know.

As for the population for SD.net (does that include banned members?), that could be rocky. We would definitly require locking some people who who couldnt cope with the radical changes.

Luckly thats fairly easy, box them in with forcefields and beam them into the brig. However, the brig isnt going to be big enough if a few dozen people go crazy(lock them in crew quarters?).

[Ma Deuce]

We don't HAVE a missile capable of reacing orbit and taking out a Starship. ICBM's are BALASTIC weapons, they barely reach LOW Earth Orbit before falling back to Earth. They lack targeting systems to track orbital targets and lack any kind of manouvering system to correct course.

ICBMs can reach orbit. The fact that retired ICBMs like SS-18s have been converted into satellite launch vehicles proves this (in it's converted launch-booster state, the SS-18 is known as the Dnepr). There was even a proposal to convert the LGM-118 Peacekeepers into launch boosters. Also, as long as the booster stages can achieve a correct intercept trajectory, I don't see why even without course correction, the the warheads couldn't hit a target following a predictable orbital trajectory.

The thing that limits the range of ICBMs against ground targets is that if they actually do acheive orbit, they have no way of getting down, so in order to hit a ground target, the ICBM's trajectory is intentionally much lower and flatter than that of an orbital-launch vehicle. Therefore, it never goes that high above the atmosphere, and thus it must rely on it's thrust most of the way just to stay aloft. The only part that relies on inertia are the RVs. Even if you put a Saturn V into a similar trajectory as an ICBM, it would not achieve orbit.

If you still think this is impossible, the obvious solution would be to simply threaten to nuke the other country if they try to recover it first.

And this isn't even assuming the computer doesn't simply raise the shields and shrug off any feasable attack.

Federation ships have never canonicly demonstrated any automatic defence system of this kind.

[Prozac the Robert]

I can't believe anyone would threaten mutually assured destruction over something like this.

I think an international colaberation would be more likely than a single country trying to grab it anyway, although obviously some countries would end up excluded.

Could the crew of the space station get to the ship somehow?

I think there is probably a teaching holodeck program for everything we would want to know, at least with regards to pure theoretical science and the running of nonmilitary aspects of the ship.

[Faqa]

I, for one, would transport up a stack o' DVD's and figure out how to feed them into the viewscreen. World, shmorld, that thing's a kickass wide-screen TV, with cool chairs.

On breaks, I'd fire the phasers, to see how they look.

More seriously....

Earth would go into semi-chaos. Once people figured out what it could do, NO ONE would trust ANYONE with the ship. Everyone would try to grab it, probably leading to U.N control. First use would be disarment of it. Afterwards, a firehose of a pissing match over who got to research what. Throw in a crapload of religious fanatics and apocalyptic cults, and you've got yourself a fine mess...

Can't we just bombard a few cities to shut the idiots up?

[beyond hope]

I can see a good number of people here heading straight for the weapons console to establish, beyond any doubt, what the figures for Trek weapons are. We might firmly establish the firepower of hand phasers first if an argument breaks out over which country to use for our tests.

[Chris OFarrell]

ICBMs can reach orbit. The fact that retired ICBMs like SS-18s have been converted into satellite launch vehicles proves this (in it's converted launch-booster state, the SS-18 is known as the Dnepr). There was even a proposal to convert the LGM-118 Peacekeepers into launch boosters. Also, as long as the booster stages can achieve a correct intercept trajectory, I don't see why even without course correction, the the warheads couldn't hit a target following a predictable orbital trajectory.

Read those key words, CONVERTED. The Satan still ONLY can boost a payload into a balastic arc. The actual payload then had to do more work with a third stage to push it up and out into orbit proper. No such missile exists PERIOD. Oh sure I am quite sure either the US or the RF could modify an ICBM if they really wanted to, but the point that no-one here gets is that NO ICBM HAS been modified as such. It would take months at the MIMINUN to design and deploy such a vehicle. None exists in the US invintory at the moment and as such none would be used against a Sovereign class ship. You have to design a kill vehicle with terminal sensors, guidence, powerplants...

And if it is sitting in Geosynch orbit and not low orbit (or perhaps even MEO) forget it. The ICBM's boost phase simply lack the thrust to enter the engagement envolope.

And of course this is assuming the shields on the ship are down, it refuses to move even slightly to make the whole thing a complete miss....

Federation ships have never canonicly demonstrated any automatic defence system of this kind.

Arsonal of Freedom. TNG. A drone decloaks dead in front of the Enterprise-D and automaticly the computer raises the shields.

[Ma Deuce]

Read those key words, CONVERTED. The Satan still ONLY can boost a payload into a balastic arc. The actual payload then had to do more work with a third stage to push it up and out into orbit proper. No such missile exists PERIOD. Oh sure I am quite sure either the US or the RF could modify an ICBM if they really wanted to, but the point that no-one here gets is that NO ICBM HAS been modified as such. It would take months at the MIMINUN to design and deploy such a vehicle. None exists in the US invintory at the moment and as such none would be used against a Sovereign class ship. You have to design a kill vehicle with terminal sensors, guidence, powerplants...

Conceded

And of course this is assuming the shields on the ship are down, it refuses to move even slightly to make the whole thing a complete miss....

But if the shields go up, or the ship's computer can make any other kind of automatic reaction to percieved threats, this whole debate a moot point, because then nobody will get on board anyway. Also, given how this "automatic defence" reacted to the drone in TAoF, and presumably would react to incoming missiles in similar fashion, what's to say it wouldn't react the same way to the manned vehicle that's sent to recover it?

[RedImperator]

I suppose if the ship is in geosync, you could use the boosters we use to put satellites into geosync orbit to put a warhead up there. But if the ship's shields are up, or someone on board is paying attention (it's not that hard to hit one of those rockets), or the ship moves, you've just wasted a very expensive rocket.

[Thag]

Question: how can you successfully perform a detailed reverse-engineering or technical study on a ship in orbit given current technology? Sure, you can get a few roving teams into the ship to poke around, but for actually taking stuff apart to see how it works I would want either the ability to bring large hardware back to earth or take the thing apart in orbit. Neither of which anyone can do right now.

[Chris OFarrell]

Question: how can you successfully perform a detailed reverse-engineering or technical study on a ship in orbit given current technology? Sure, you can get a few roving teams into the ship to poke around, but for actually taking stuff apart to see how it works I would want either the ability to bring large hardware back to earth or take the thing apart in orbit. Neither of which anyone can do right now.

Just ask the computer. Given the absurd amounts of information UFP computer cores have, there should be complete schmatics of all technology from early 21st century to current day, along with terabytes of writings on the underlying physics and concepts.

I mean think of what will happen once they download the plans for Fusion reactors? Wonder how OPEC would like that

[Kamakazie Sith]

An alien space capsule with a similar level of technology to us was able to activate a airlock on Voyager somehow.

Didn't they allow them on? It's been a while...