S. 8472 vs Empire

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-27 12:25pm

Mr Bean: Yes thats true but it passes for technical in the ST verse which is what we were talking about, realigning the phase tranducers is a technical procedure in ST even if it actually means nothing.

His Divine Shadow : Yes but if a lpanet was blowing up I would go as fast as I could, then again I would have just gone to warp.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-07-27 01:09pm

What happens when what they say in technobabbleize is a procedure that cannot actually be done in real life? Do we accept what they have been saying, or do we assume that they are actually using a different procedure?

Maybe they cannot go to warp within a system, or that close to a planet (like in SW). In one episode of DS9, Dax was floored by Major Kira's orders to go to warp inside a star system in order to prevent a founder masquerading as Bashir from blowing up the Bajoran sun and destroying the station and much of the Federation fleet. I realize that that was point to point WITHIN a system, but maybe it isn't safe to go to warp very close to a planet? It's a bad explanation for why the Borg didn't go to warp, but it may be as good as they can get.

Or, maybe the Borg just didn't have the reaction time to get to warp. Maybe they really are slow.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-27 02:47pm

In one episode of Voyager a shuttle attempts warp inside the atmosphere and in a TNG Picard orders warping out from orbit.

Im not sure why in system warp isnt recomended but its preferable to being destroyed.

We have seen the Borg go to warp faster than 13 seconds in BOBW so I can only assume that the death of the Borg on the planet affected them somehow or some other external force affected them.

All we need to know is that any old singularity wont work the singularity has to be specially created for travel to or from 8472 land.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-07-27 02:56pm

TheDarkling wrote: Im not sure why in system warp isnt recomended but its preferable to being destroyed.

Clearly.

TheDarkling wrote:We have seen the Borg go to warp faster than 13 seconds in BOBW so I can only assume that the death of the Borg on the planet affected them somehow or some other external force affected them.

But in BoBW the Borg were not reacting to anything when they decided to go to warp. Perhaps the deaths of all the Borg DID affect them, but they don't appear to suffer from any sort of problems when small numbers of Borg are being killed. That also doesn't explain away some of their gastropod-on-downers-reaction-times to some events in TNG. They seem to be inconsistent about how well the Borg respond to outside stimulus.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-27 02:59pm

Ah but they were reacting when the E-D exits the nebula they go to warp and the Borg warp after them in well under 13 seconds.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-07-27 03:03pm

TheDarkling wrote:Ah but they were reacting when the E-D exits the nebula they go to warp and the Borg warp after them in well under 13 seconds.

Yeah, I know that my explanation doesn't seem to be consistent with all of the different examples in which we see the Borg, but I don't see anything that could. If you have a better explanation I would be more than happy to support it, but I don't think that there is one. I think that the Borg are just inconsistent with their reactions.

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2002-07-27 03:04pm

One reason for not going to warp inside a solar system would be common sense: in interstellar space no one is likely to worry if your navigational deflector shoves aside some dust or smallish debris, but inside a system one might easily shove aside an inhabited structure or deflect a small asteroid to slam into something it shouldn't, not to mention the risk of making a mistake and slamming into a planet or travelling shuttle.

Another reason, specifically applicable to the Borg, might be the following: blasting the planet should have destroyed millions, if not billions, of Borg. The dying Borg would likely overload the available local bandwidth of the Collective, leading to momentary confusion.

Also, such an event would, especially if my chain reaction theory for S8472's planet killer is right, lead to local subspace distortion that the cubes would have to outrun prior to establishing a warp field. Such distortion might also jam the Borg communications, further slowing their reactions.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2002-07-27 07:16pm

That's one of the problems of a hive mind. If anything happens to one member, everyone else feels it too. If your hypothesis is correct, though, that gives a good tactic. BDZ a world, and at the same time, attack a bunch of other Borg positions in the same region. The BDZ will disorient the Borg long enough to do some serious damage.

Cal Wright · Post by **Cal Wright** » 2002-07-28 12:36am

TheDarkling wrote:His Divine Shadow: 0.25c is standard top speed but they can go to 0.75c.

DG_Cal_Wright: Combat sensors are tailored for just that.
We dont have any evidence there is? well then why isnt every singularity a gateway to 8472 land?
The singularity has special protocols Ref Prey.
Treknobabble = Something technical.
Well that last statement shows the level of your debating I guess.

So what, now I'm a fucking idiot. Treknobabble is your copout excuse for not having a come back. You said they don't have sensors, I proved they did. Now how do you post one of them Concession Accepted pictures up here?

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-28 12:46am

First off you said it but I wont disagree with your first statement.

No it isnt - any old singularity wont do, theres the proof.

I said I dont think they can scan (it) as in they dont have science sensors but yes I should have made that more clear - of course they have sensors.

I dont need one of thopse pictures to accept your concession but thanks for asking on my behalf.

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2002-07-28 05:51am

Darth Yoshi wrote:That's one of the problems of a hive mind. If anything happens to one member, everyone else feels it too. If your hypothesis is correct, though, that gives a good tactic. BDZ a world, and at the same time, attack a bunch of other Borg positions in the same region. The BDZ will disorient the Borg long enough to do some serious damage.

True. If my hypothesis should be correct, trying to destroy a large population of drones as quickly as possible should be the easiest way to momentarily disorient the local Borg forces. And, true again, destroying a Borg planetary population would be the fastest way to produce that disorientation.

It would also explain the complete lack of effectiveness the Borg showed in their short battle scenes against S8472. Basically, a large fleet of Borg cubes would quickly lose its effectiveness as individual cubes fall. Each destroyed cube produces a momentary burst of static in the local hive mind, disorienting the surviving cubes and making it likelier that they will succumb quickly to attacks. And then the cycle continues.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-07-28 09:49am

The closer you look at the Borg, the more they seem to be a bunch of pathetic fools.

Patrick Ogaard · Post by **Patrick Ogaard** » 2002-07-28 11:38am

Cpt_Frank wrote:The closer you look at the Borg, the more they seem to be a bunch of pathetic fools.

Agreed. All they really seem to be is a bunch of pathetic fools whose forebears played with technology they did not adequately understand. The technology took them over, warped their perceptions, and the new Collective began stealing tech and people from all and sundry.

The Bynars from ST:TNG might be a conceptual precursor:
All Bynars are linked with and dependent on their world's central computer. Now imagine a monumental glitch that gives absolute priority to optimization and takes control of the individual minds of the Bynars linked to the central computer. In just a few short years the Bynars could transform themselves into rapacious raiders, ruthlessly modifying their own bodies to achieve whatever arbitrary optimization goal their new collective consciousness has set.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-07-28 11:46am

Patrick Ogaard wrote:Agreed. All they really seem to be is a bunch of pathetic fools whose forebears played with technology they did not adequately understand. The technology took them over, warped their perceptions, and the new Collective began stealing tech and people from all and sundry.

Heh heh ... how pathetic is it to be unable to conquer the Federation after years of effort? And how pathetic is it for Species 8472 to run in fear of this same enemy and never come back because of a half-dozen casualties? I like the way Trekkies believe that the Federation survived its various enemies because of intrinsic strength rather than pathetic enemies.

The Bynars from ST:TNG might be a conceptual precursor:
All Bynars are linked with and dependent on their world's central computer. Now imagine a monumental glitch that gives absolute priority to optimization and takes control of the individual minds of the Bynars linked to the central computer. In just a few short years the Bynars could transform themselves into rapacious raiders, ruthlessly modifying their own bodies to achieve whatever arbitrary optimization goal their new collective consciousness has set.

Goddamn, why didn't I think of that? The Bynars could be an example of how the Federation might eventually become the Borg.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-07-28 11:48am

The Borg, victims of their search for perfection. Instead of making them the ultimate race, their technology made them to monsters.
Almost gotta pity them!

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-07-28 11:52am

TheDarkling wrote:Mass Borg suicide it is then.
They arent the greatest minds of there time.

In one of my Hate Mails, I made the point that the Borg organization structure can be compared to a giant SMP computer system, which offers no performance gain whatsoever over a single CPU in single-threaded computation. In fact, it will generally be slower, because of the overhead involved in managing so many processing units.

Cubes seem to operate in single-threaded mode (notice that they don't fire on more than one target simultaneously, and that the entire cube's drones become hostile to intruders at once). Therefore, their decision-making should be markedly inferior to that of a single person.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-28 11:58am

Darth Wong: They did come back Ref Unimatrix zero, Ref In the Flesh.

Ok say you had your fleet of ISD and you had been hammering on the Federation and suddenly the Feds destroy 10 ISD with one shot would pull back and try to figure out what the hell was going on or let the rest of your fleet be destroyed?

Pulling back was the clever thing to do.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-07-28 12:08pm

Err, you are talking about S8472 I guess?

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-28 12:11pm

I am indeed - retreating was the clver thing to do yet Darth Wong is using it as a basis for calling 8472 small of cowardly.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-28 12:16pm

As for the Borg not taking over the Feds - they were upto something.

They have a transwarp entry point less than a LY from Earth if they sent 2 Cube into it, Earth wold be a Borg world before a signiciant fleet arrived and begun the fight.

No you can claim that they are just stupid but that makes no sense whatsoever - The queen has a brain and she has been in on the attack on Earth twice.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-07-28 12:27pm

If you want to achieve a mission objective (capture and assimilate earth, for example), and don't send a force as large as you can afford it (without significantly depleting your defensive forces, for example) to acheive this mission objective, this is a clear sign of tactical stupidity.
The Borg no doubt could have afforded it to send, say, 50 Cubes there, and they wouldn't have lost the battle against the feds in this case.
Another possibility is that the Borg fleet indeed is much smaller than most people currently believe, and a cube or two are a significant poriton of it.
So either the Borg are incompetent morons, or they have a pitifully small fleet.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-28 12:34pm

Well in several cases their fleet is said to number in the millions.

One cube could do it easily - it arrives in orbit of earth and destroys nearby ships, by the time a Fed fleet arrives the Borg have alrerady assimilated large numbers of Earth's populace.

The fact that they dont send more ships and the fact they dont use the transportation mode that would put them a LY from Earth giving the Federation little time to respon just says that something else was going on.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2002-07-28 12:36pm

TheDarkling wrote:I am indeed - retreating was the clver thing to do yet Darth Wong is using it as a basis for calling 8472 small of cowardly.

They retreated after tiny losses. You claim they have thousands of ships. This is indicative of cowardice, no matter how hard you try to spin it.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-07-28 12:38pm

Ok say you had your fleet of ISD and you had been hammering on the Federation and suddenly the Feds destroy 10 ISD with one shot would pull back and try to figure out what the hell was going on or let the rest of your fleet be destroyed?

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2002-07-28 12:41pm

TheDarkling wrote:Well in several cases their fleet is said to number in the millions.

One cube could do it easily - it arrives in orbit of earth and destroys nearby ships, by the time a Fed fleet arrives the Borg have alrerady assimilated large numbers of Earth's populace.

The fact that they dont send more ships and the fact they dont use the transportation mode that would put them a LY from Earth giving the Federation little time to respon just says that something else was going on.

Or that they're fucking stupid.

One Cube obviously couldn't do it easily.. Did you even watch BOBW and FC?