Just a couple of quick notes until I can do some catch-up this weekend (hopefully).
1. The comments field seems to have become a de facto debate arena in the recent post on extremism, but for that purpose it's pretty clunky.
2. Yet another new face has been added. Expect even more cool posts here soon.
3. I was watching "Homefront"[DSN4] a few weeks ago and, as always, wondered where Spacedock had gone, since it was never mentioned while Earth's power systems were knocked out. Everyone was making use of the Lakota as if it was the only Starfleet item in orbit. This sort of thing . . . plus the fact that we generally never heard of or saw Spacedock at all throughout the TNG era . . . has led people (myself included) to wonder if Spacedock was even there anymore.
Of course, while Spacedock is almost certainly the biggest example of objects in Earth orbit, it isn't the only one. Earth orbit was a hub of activity in TMP, with orbital offices and drydocks galore. We've also heard of orbital habitats built by Sisko before DS9, and we've seen another drydock in Earth orbit as of Nemesis. That last bit kills the notion that all the Starfleet orbital stuff had been moved to Mars, where various large stations and drydock facilities have been seen.
Unless we're supposed to believe that Earth orbit has been cleared since the TMP era save for a drydock and some orbiting apartment buildings, then we can't simply assume that Spacedock isn't there simply because of a lack of mention.
. . . Or so I was thinking. It then occurred to me that there actually had been a mention of Earth Spacedock. In "Non Sequitur"[VOY2], Kim is trapped in a timeline that diverged from the "real" one starting several months before the episode (which was a Season 1 holdover set in 2371). He and the alternate-Paris steal a ship Kim designed from Spacedock.
So, at least as of a week or so before Voyager's departure in mid-2371 (which is when Kim signed on for the ship's mission per Pathways), Spacedock did exist. Unless something freaky happened in the intervening year, Spacedock was still there during the "Homefront" events.
Why it wasn't mentioned or used at all is another question altogether.
4. For some reason I was thinking that there was a shot of one of the huge Federation mushroom starbases like Starbase 74 (the upscaled Spacedock-style bases), one which did not have the planetary disc behind it as was seen in the original ST3 shot, and that further this base might've been "merely" of Spacedock size.
Evidently I'm either senile or have been hitting the crack pipe again, since a quick check of DITL and TrekCore.com's episode screenshots confirms that the shots of Starbase 133 and Lya Station Alpha used the TNG-modified ST3 shots as seen in the original Starbase 74 ep, "11001001"[TNG1]. Those all have the remarkably-Earth-like planet behind them.
This means, though, that every time we've seen one of those large-scale bases it has been in orbit of a Class M planet. The various "freestanding" bases have all been of the Regula-looking type (either Regula-size or of the larger 173/375 configurations).
I don't know about you, but if I've built a structure weighing in the neighborhood of 40-140 billion tonnes, I'd rather not put it anywhere where (a) it is subjected to the slightest gravity shear across its bulk or (b) it is remotely possible that it will go crashing down onto a populated planet. I mean, these things aren't in LEO, skirting the atmosphere and needing frequent boosts . . . but they aren't exactly out in stable L4 or L5 Trojan-style LaGrange positions either.
Assuming there are no such bases in open space, this implies that that type of base is dependent on the planet in some manner. Either (a) they aren't sufficiently self-sustaining in regards to basic supplies, crew support, materiel, et cetera, (b) they are specialized bases requiring certain supplies or manufacturing from below (kind of like Terok Nor's original purpose as an ore processing station before becoming DS9), or (c) other. Further pondering seems prudent.
38 comments:
The comments field seems to have become a de facto debate arena in the recent post on extremism, but for that purpose it's pretty clunky.
You either just made the understatement of the year or made a very subtle joke.
I'm not sure which one it is, but writing like this is exactly why I like this site so much. Keep it up :-)
Yeah, It's pretty clunky. Why don't you(G2k) set up some sort of forum? I seem to recal that you used to have one.
Yeah, and it killed his bandwith.
Though that had more to do with random invasions.
Well, I've got a forum on my website that's doing absolutely nothing. And if I could set up something with Darkstar, I MIGHT be able to allow him to direct everyone there for debate and whatnot. But that's up to him, and I'll probably need a better host. My contract doesn't expire till June though. =/
How about something like this: http://www.1-2-free-forums.com/
?
. . . Or so I was thinking. It then occurred to me that there actually had been a mention of Earth Spacedock. In "Non Sequitur"[VOY2], Kim is trapped in a timeline that diverged from the "real" one starting several months before the episode (which was a Season 1 holdover set in 2371). He and the alternate-Paris steal a ship Kim designed from Spacedock.
So, at least as of a week or so before Voyager's departure in mid-2371 (which is when Kim signed on for the ship's mission per Pathways), Spacedock did exist. Unless something freaky happened in the intervening year, Spacedock was still there during the "Homefront" events.
"Non Sequitir" took place in an alternate timeline, so Spacedock's location there is irrelevant to Spacedock's location in the canon timeline.
"Non Sequitir" took place in an alternate timeline, so Spacedock's location there is irrelevant to Spacedock's location in the canon timeline.
Incorrect. While it is true it took place in an alternate timeline, the only real difference between the two was the switching of Harry Kim and his friend in terms of assignments. Everything else was the same, essentially. Thusly, we can safely conclude that Spacedock would have been in Earth orbit regardless.
Well, DS9 DID propel itself from orbit to the Denorias belt, which is probably about the same distance from Earth to our own astoroid belt. Admittedly it's a much smaller station, but it is something to think about.
...
Then again, considering the Death Star can fly around the galaxy, that's not all that impressive...
Dickstar had a forum but the crew from SD.net pwned him.
Nooch.
There's also another interesting here that Anonymous brings up without realizing it; construction times.
If the Spacedock of "Non Sequitur" would have had to have been constructed within a 3 year time period since the timeline only diverged off the real one several months prior to Voyager's departure.
The other possibility is that the Spacedock had been relocated from somewhere else, which implies propulsion, either tugs, or an internal one capable of moving such a massive structure.
Think about it. :-)
Yes, it is possible. I would not be surprised if the UFP Starfleet had such a capability.
Michael
I don't see why the choice number three depends on "smart Warsies". It is the obvious choice since we've seen the Spacedock already in orbit in 80 years prior.
You've missed the obvious. The Spacedock we saw in "Non Sequitur" is not the same Spacedock we saw in ST3, 4, and 6 (the footage used was of the Dyson Sphere spacedoors, not the ST3 station).
We saw a door. If you watch the spacedock scenes from ST3 and ST6 you'll see that there are many hangar apertures in the station. There is no reason to assume that the shuttle had to exit through the same door the Enterprise exited.
Now I must admit that I don't really understand the second part of your argument. Why would the alternate timeline point to the station being built in less than 2 years or the station being flown from another location.
Not that I believe that alternate timeline is a valid explanation for the different appearance of the door. I already posted the explanation for that.
Neither or those options are good for the Warsies who want to keep believing that Federation industrial capcity is up to par with the Galactic Empire, nor can it built a mobile space station as they like to claim. But that is the logical conclusion, if you go with the Anon Warsie's "but it's an alternate timeline" nonsense, because that is what the Federation would have to do in order to have a station there in time that wasn't there prior to the timeline's divergence!
This is also a little unclear. The second Death Star is still 30,000 times bigger than TNG spacedock and was 60% complete in a year or so and it was built secretly. So even if the Federation did have the capability to build the new spacedock in 2 years and even if it is as big as those from TNG it is still a long way from Imperial industry.
But as you said this is only applicable if we accept the alternate timeline.
Also I don't remember the Federation ever moving a space station other than DS9 at a great risk. They ceartainly don't have the technology to move them at FTL speeds like the Death Star.
This is another Anonymous person here. I'm not here to debate so much as to throw this question up in the air so my curiosity can be satisfied...
Are you sure the second Death Star was built after the first's destruction or could it be possibly the two Death Stars at some point were being constructed at the same time? I've been wondering about that ever since the ending of Star Wars: Episode III, thinking that the construction of two different ones was more plausable and realistic. But maybe I'm just too simple-minded and should stick to having good phasers/blasters/glowsticks/lightsabers at my side.
Sincerely,
Another Anonymous (Call me "Anonymous 2" if you get confused.)
The Spacedock station seen in "Non Sequitur" is clearly a very different one from that Spacedock first seen in ST3.
All we saw was a door. How do you know it's different?
It is also obviously very large, too.
How can it be obviously large when all we saw was a door against a runabout?
1.) To build a multi-km sized station in less than 2 years is really just a fracking amazing demonstration of industrial capability for the Federation. Only the Death Stars are more impressive as far as that goes. I would think that Warsies would NOT want that to be the case. Also, the Death Stars are unique creations, they are not normal for the SW universe, unlike the Spacedock/SB-74/Utopia Planita space stations, which seem to be relatively common in ST. Also, just a little note about SB-74's size; when Graham and I did the original photometric scaling of the station, it actually is a conservative size since it is difficult to tell how much wider than the E-D's saucer the SB-74's spacedoors are. At least 20%, but it could be more than that.
As I already said 30,000 times bigger is not exactly trivial matter. It demonstrates orders of magnitude greater industrial capacity. Secondly we only saw three or four S74 stations and two Death Stars. How can you claim that Death Stars are unique and at the same time claim that S74 are common?
2.) If the station was not built in two years, it had to have come from somewhere else, which means that the station has it's own propulsion, or was tugged in. If not tugged in, then it means that regular Federation space stations have their own means to move about, at least at sublight, which goes against the Warsie belief that they don't have any significant propulsion of any kind; either sublight or FTL. Oh, and as for DS9, that station wasn't Federation built, it's Cardassian, so we actually have no idea what an actual Federation-built station can do in that regard. But anyhow, that choice is also obviously unpalpatable for Warsies for all the reasons outlined above. So....
Why would it have to come from "somewhere else"?We don't even know where the spacedock from Non Sequitur was located in the first place.
Now once again I don't believe in "alternate timeline" theory but even if we do use it how does it mean that the station was built in less than two years or tugged into it's location? The Voyager was launched from DS9 in the first episode and we never saw Earth's orbit. Therefore alternate timeline or not we don't know how much time was spent to construct that spacedock even if we assume it was different.
Oh geez, not this crap again...
Look: It doesn't really matter. If the Federation is capable of moving such a station and/or building one in less than two years, so what? As you've said, Mr. Rabid "Anon" Warsie, the Death Star bit is far more impressive(though regarding the FTL capability, we don't know how hyperspace works. Maybe hyperspace engines can work on anything no matter what the size, since we've seen them on tiny things like an X-Wing and the Death Star, with no apparent difference in FTL speed. =/) so even if the Federation is capable of that level of industrial production, your precious Empire is still more capable. Further, you should all remember the vast number of ships destroyed, built, replaced, and whatnot during the Dominion War. Methinks the Federation wouldn't have a problem when it comes to industrial capability in a war.
Further, why is it that everytime we ever come up with a Federation vs. Empire comparison, everyone ignores the Federation allies? Assuming we set it at 2379, the most recent date, the Federation has the Klingon Empire and the Romulan Star Empire on its side, as well as the Cardassians--who, need I remind you all, showed an impressive bounce-back from the war with a Klingons just a year before the Dominion War. And, of course, let's consider this: in any true conflict, the Empire would probably be the invaders, and probably be going after the entire galaxy, not just the Federation. This means that, in all likelihood, especially with Odo and his convincing of the Founders, the Dominion would join up with the Federation as well. And consider this: the Federation only won the war because the Dominion was forced to keep the vast majority of its production capabilities and fleet on the other side of the galaxy. So, we've now got the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, AND Dominion all against the Empire.
Of course, we're still leaving out the various minor powers, such as the Tholians, the Breen, the Miradon, the Tzenkethi, the Gorn, the Organians--assuming they'd choose to interfere(and speaking of that, we've got a whole slew of nigh-omnipotent beings in this catagory, like the Metrons, the Q, the Douwd, and probably others I'm not remembering. You just know Q in particular would, at the very least, poke in and nag at Picard, if not help in some way, like keep the Enterprise around.)--and many, many others. So, yeah, sure, the Empire has an entire galaxy on their side. But, as you can see, it would appear that for the most part, the Federation would as well. Or at least some of it. Obviously not all of these powers would join with the Federation, and concievably, just like with the Dominion War, some might join with the Empire, though I personally don't find that to be all that likely, if only because this would be a totally different type of situation. More probably we'd have a bunch of neutrals that slowly start to join in with the Federation as the Empire goes and acts idiotically by blowing the shit out of everyone.
There's even the Borg to consider, though what they could possibly do, I've no idea. From what happened at the end of Voyager, it's likely most of the Borg Collective was destabilized, and is probably in ruins still. But there is the remnents of the Unimatrix Zero peeps and their ships. Might be a wee bit of help, at least. =/
Lastly, we've got the Rebel Alliance to consider as well. Obviously if there's going to be a war between the Empire and the Federation, it's gonna be before the Alliance lays the smack-down on both Death Stars. Still, they'd be there, harrasing the Empire all the while, and possibly providing incredibly valuable intelligence. Who knows: Luke or Obi-Wan, depending on circumstances, might even aid the Federation in training its own Jedi warriors...assuming the Federation lifeforms have midichlorians. If, for instance, both the Star Wars universe and the Star Trek universe are actually the same universe but different galaxies, then in all probability they do have midichloreans. On the other hand, if it's alternate universes...probably not.
In any case, I think it's clear that we've not all really thought this through as much as we thought. EVEN IF the Empire is much more powerful than true evidence suggests, in all likelihood: they'd get their freaking asses kicked. So, yeah Warsies. Forget about it. You've lost, pure and simple.
Look: It doesn't really matter. If the Federation is capable of moving such a station and/or building one in less than two years, so what? As you've said, Mr. Rabid "Anon" Warsie, the Death Star bit is far more impressive
Actually there is no evidence that Federation can build a spacedock in two years. It could very well take decades. And why do you call me "rabid"?
(though regarding the FTL capability, we don't know how hyperspace works. Maybe hyperspace engines can work on anything no matter what the size, since we've seen them on tiny things like an X-Wing and the Death Star, with no apparent difference in FTL speed. =/)
Even if that is true that only makes hyperspace all the more superior since it can be used on a vessel of any size. However there is a difference in FTL speed, Millenium Falcon would always outrun the Imperial Star Destroyers with hyperdrive.
so even if the Federation is capable of that level of industrial production, your precious Empire is still more capable.
Why do you call it "my precious Empire"? It seems to me that "your precious Federation" is the problem here since you don't want to admit that the Empire has shown tens of thousands of times greater industrial capacity than the Federation.
Further, you should all remember the vast number of ships destroyed, built, replaced, and whatnot during the Dominion War. Methinks the Federation wouldn't have a problem when it comes to industrial capability in a war.
Actually we have heard about 98 ships destroyed in one of the battles and everyone thought it was a terrible loss. In "Best of both worlds" the Borg destroyed 40 ships and was also considered a great loss. Admiral Nechayev later complained that the Federation is not ready for another war with the Cardassians beacuse of the losses to the Borg. One time the Romulans moved 30 ships closer to the Neutral Zone and the entire fleet was put on yellow alert.
Of course we know that the Federation once assembled a fleet of 600 ships however the fleet seem to consist mostly of Miranda and Excelsior class ships which are 100 and 30 times smaller than a Warbird respectivley. So a fleet of 30 Warbirds could easily be as powerful as thousand of average Federation ships. We also know that the Bajoran wormhole was the most important place in the enitre war and that controling it meant the difference between winning and losing. Since the Dominion sent 1254 ships while the Federation sent 600 ships then obviously they didn't have many more ships to spare. Furthermore 2800 ships that Dominion sent through the wormhole were expected to easily win the war and the Federation admirals predicted that the Federation didn't have a chance if they get into the alpha quadrant. So we are talking about 1000-2000 ships for the Federation. If we assume that an average ship stays in service for 50 years that equates to 20-40 ships per year industrial capacity. Just what commander Shelby predicted.
Assuming the average ship size is that of Excelsior that translates into 18-36 Imperial Star Destroyers or 0.3-0.7 ISDs produced per year. Compare that to a the second Death Star 60% built in a year. The 60% DS2 is 23 million times bigger than and ISD which means that the Empire can build 20 million ISDs per year. This means the Empire has almost hundred million times greater industrial capacity then the Federation.
So really it doesn't matter what allies the Federation brught into the war the Empire would still defeat them. And as for Q and Organians and other mysterious entities they never helped the Federation against the Dominion or the Borg. The only exception was the prophets but the Dominion has been using their own wormhole for invasion and we already know they don't exactly like the linear-time beings.
EVEN IF the Empire is much more powerful than true evidence suggests, in all likelihood: they'd get their freaking asses kicked.
Actually the evidence would seem to suggest that the Empire has millions of times greater industrial capacity than the Federation. The Federation ships would have to be millions of times more powerful merley to even up the odds.
It took Empire 20 or so years to complete the first Death Star so I have to agree with Anonymous 2. 2nd DS must have been under construction for much longer than just a year.
I'll admit to you on the losses of ships and whatnot, though I personally think the 40 ship loss was considered large because it was peace time and/or they hadn't fought a true major war since the Earth/Romulan war. And, of course, you gotta remember how high a value they place on life: to me, ANY loss of a ship is huge, because of the number of people that die.
Further, you seem to forget how spread out the Federation is. In all probability, their fleet is vastly larger than it might first appear, and is spread out across that eight thousand light years or so in order to defend it all equally and whatnot. In terms of wartime production, they clearly kept up during the entire war.
Further, that 600 ships thing? You forget the circumstances. The Federation had to move sooner than they wanted to, because the minefield was coming down faster than they would have liked. They left with only 1/3 of the fleet strength they were expecting to have. And yes, holding the wormhole was important: the Dominion had control of most of the Gamma quadrant, as they were extremely imperialistic and had been around for ~10,000 years. As such, they had an incredibly large fleet, probably numbering in the tens to hundreds of thousands total, especially considering their production capability. The 2800 starship fleet wasn't expected to completely annihilate the Federation, I should point out. It was the wormhole control issue. You could expect the Dominion to want to keep control of the wormhole after they got their fleets through, so most of those ships would stick around the wormhole while more and more ships would continue to pour through. So it was not that initial number that would overwhelm the Federation: it was the Dominion's ability to bring a much larger number to bear that would have.
Also, you're forgetting that Emperor Sidious called the 27 ship fleet at Endor a "great space armada." That kind of terminology isn't easily dismissed, just like the loss of ships from the Federation isn't easy to dismiss. In all likelihood, while their production capabilities may be vast, that doesn't mean they've got such a huge number of ships. And considering how weak Star Destroyers are--the whole shearing off of the bridge tower comes to mind--I quite frankly don't think superior numbers will aid them all that much.
Mister Sparhawk is also correct: the Death Star was NOT produced in a mere one-two years, nor was the 2nd one. I've always thought it would make sense to have two under construction, one being kept so secretive that almost no one knew, in order to prevent the loss of the first from being too much of a disaster, in the unlikely event that were to happen in the first place.
And your comparisons as to starship strengths are rather unfair. You forget the large number of Galaxy, Akira, and other similarly powerful ships we also saw scattered throughout the Federation ranks. Also, you forget again that the Federation is not by nature a warlike culture. Of course their peacetime production rates are going to far slower than their wartime production rates, because they're more about keeping the peace and exploring and lots of nice stuff that your Empire doesn't give a shit about(which is a damned shame, I should mention.) But once wartime comes around, the Federation can quite easily ramp up production tenfold, if not one hundred fold. We don't know the number of shipyards they have, after all. There have been numerous ones mentioned throughout the various series. Utopia Planitia alone has hundreds of shipyards in orbit.
There's also a matter of tactics in mind. Yes, the Empire has many large and powerful ships. They don't seem to know shit about tactics though. Even the peaceful Federation knows far more about tactics, and I don't think I need to mention the experience the Klingons, Romulans, and others could bring to the table.
Then, of course, there is the sheer power and accuracy of Federation weapons. You can completely forget about fighters being able to do anything: those things are incredibly fragile, and survive in battles mostly because Star Wars weaponry is slow and far less accurate than phasers, disruptors, and the various torpedos(such as photon, quantum, and plasma to name a few.) The capability of Federation and other species starships to target ship's systems easily on just their much smaller ships is an incredible advantage considering the sheer size of Star Destroyers and other Empire ships, which would be far easier to disable. And, of course, there's the fact that most weaponry on Federation and other species starships is automated, while Empire weapons are all manned. Seems like the Federation would have the upper hand.
Frankly, all this mucking around is beside the point. The evidence, when weighed, gives the Empire few advantages, and those few advantages end up faltering against the advantages that the Federation and her allies have. As I said: you've lost.
A note on casualties... a "terrible loss" is relative.
For the United States, for example, a few thousand soldiers dying raises alarm. Yet that's less than 1% of the combat wing. (In comparison, that would be like a 10,000 strong Starfleet losing a few dozen ships. Sound familiar?)
Now, there are a fair number of documented S74 type stations... and stations whose type is known are a small fraction of the total.
I've been over this before; the best unbiased estimate of the number of S74 stations is several hundred.
Thank you Mike and BHMM, for backing up my not-so-well-thought out points. I need to learn how to debate better...=/
And yes, do please explain BHMM. I fail to see why the Federation would have hundreds of SB74-type Starbases. Perhaps around a hundred or so, but not hundreds.
So much for Anon Warsies assertion of a "few" large stations that we've seen.
No I said that there is a few of S74 type stations, namely four. Your own example list confirms this.
As for Utopia planitia shypyards they are off in the distance and no exact scalings is possible. You provide 3-16km range but that is factor 151 volume difference.
The Empire building two 100 km plus stations in 23 some-odd years is a rare thing, and such a feat was unknown prior such that experianced spacer Han Solo mistook DS1 for a small moon.
Yes Han Solo thought that it was a moon however Obi-Wan Kenobi immediatley identified it as a space station. I don't know about you but I think that former general and a Jedi is far more experienced than a smuggler.
As has already been correctly pointed out, the Federation task force left Starbase 375 without the Ninth fleet because the mines blocking the wormhole were being brought down faster than expected. This means some significant portion of the fleet assembled was not there.
Yes a significant portion not orders of magnitude greater portion. This does not contradict the several thousand ships range.
Oh by the way 1,250/2 = 625 ships for the Federation fleet elements that did make it.
Actually it was 1254 ships so that would mean 627 ships but this is nothing more than nitpicking.
Note that the fleet being assembled from "elements' of the Second, and Fifth fleets at the time it was forced to leave SB 375. Does this mean there are other elements of these fleets fighting on fronts elsewhere? Then there's the mentioned Third fleet, which was guarding Earth. How many ships there? In fact we know of the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th fleets. If there are only 10 fleets, and they average 212 ships (313 + 112/2 = 212), then there at least 2,122 ships in Starfleet. That's well above Anon Warsie's strange little accounting.
Strange little counting of 1000-2000 ships is not that different than 2,122 ships you got. Of course neither of these figures is hard and precise but they do not differ drasticaly. As is said few thousand ships.
Could there be more more than 2,122 ships in Starfleet? Certainly. In 2375, the 7th fleet, which had been devastated in "A Time to Stand" [DS96] and left with only 14 ships, was rebuilt sufficently to launch a significant offensive in the Kalandra sector ("Afterimage" [DS97] less than a year later. So Starfleet can rebuilt it's losses quite quickly, far more so than it could in 2266. So replacing 98 some-odd ships isn't as big a deal as Anon Warsie would have us believe. This is also important in the context that the Federation before the Dominion conflict suffered signficant losses during the Klingon skirmishing, and the second Borg attack.
Just because they reused the fleet doesn't mean that they have rebuilt it to full pre-war strength. Also they could've simply combined the ships from several decimated fleets. Of course you provided no numbers on Federation losses to Borg and Klingons.
Furthermore, another big nail in the coffin of the Warsie belief in only a few thousand ships for the Federation comes from DS9's "Whe it Rains..." immediately following the loss of ships at Chin'Toka to the Breen energy draining weapon, we learn that the Klingons will have 1,500 ships ready in a day with a warp core modification that will make them immune to the Breen weapon. A Romulan represenative points out that those 1,500 ships will be outnumbered "twenty to one" by the combined Dominon forces, which means approximately 30,000 ships for the Dominion and it's allies (the Federation and it's Romulan and Klingon allies MUST have at least this number of ships to hold their own against the Dominion, with an average of 10,000 ships between each of them).
First of all the losses at Chintoka were never quantified. How many ships have they lost? If they lost say 200 ships they could still assemble a fleet of thousands of ships. Secondly we are talking about Federation ships not Klingon ships. The Klingons will likely have more ships since they mostly use smaller Birds of prey and their fleet is more powerful than Federation. As for 30,000 Dominion ships how many of those ships are Jem'Hadar attack fighters? The same figters that couldn't destroy the effectively unshielded runabouts in Jem'Hadar? That couldn't destroy an unshielded Galaxy in over a minute of fire even though they outnumbered it 3:1? Not to mention those small Cardassian ships, Hideki class I believe, or Galor class which Enterpirse effortlesly defeated in "Wounded". The alliance could still defeat the Dominion even without fleet number parity.
In "The Dogs of War", it is pointed out by the Romulan represenative that assaulting Cardassia will will cost "thousands of ships", again supporting the idea of more than a few thousand vessels with Starfleet and it's allies.
10,000 ships between 3 allies is 3,333 ships. Secondly the "thousands of ships" was considered a big problem and they predicted great losses. If they indeed had tens of thousands of ships then sparing "thousands of ships" would not be a problem would it?
In "The Dogs of War", it is pointed out by the Romulan represenative that assaulting Cardassia will will cost "thousands of ships", again supporting the idea of more than a few thousand vessels with Starfleet and it's allies.
Yes more than a few thousand ships between Federation and it's allies but a few thousand ships for Federation alone.
In "What You Leave Behind", the Federation and allied fleets were able to completely surround and cut off the beleaguered Dominion forces at Cardassia. No mean feat that, and it means the again, more than 10,000 ships... way more to accomplish such a feat, and speaks of an industrial infrastructure that was able to ramp up in few years to the task of producing thousands of ships to cover rather substantial losses, and build up a fleet that could defeat the Dominion.
First of all you forgot to mention that the alliance didn't do so well until the Cardassians turned on the Dominion. Even if we take around 10,000 ships for the alliance that is still a few thousand ships for any single power. But this incident also reveales something interesting. The alliance was afraid that if they don't attack immediatley the Dominion will entrench in Cardassia and continue producing ships. In other words the entire Romulan/Klingon/Federation alliance was afraid of an enemy that was reduced to a single planet! This speaks volumes about their own industrial capacity and number of important systems.
I've been over this before; the best unbiased estimate of the number of S74 stations is several hundred.
Actually the best estimate is exactly what we see on screen: four stations. You want to compare two Death Stars (only what we see) with hundreds of S74 starbases (unsupported assumptions).
Well, seeing as how I lack information for the most part, I'm just gonna tackle a few points here and let Mike and BHMM take the rest...
No I said that there is a few of S74 type stations, namely four. Your own example list confirms this.
As for Utopia planitia shypyards they are off in the distance and no exact scalings is possible. You provide 3-16km range but that is factor 151 volume difference.
As they've said: consider the starbase number, which is 74. We've also seen starbase numbers up to at least 375. All this leads to a reasonable assumption that among those are a large number of SB74 type stations. Consider how useful those things would be. I dunno about you, but I'd want one in orbit of at least every major planet in the Federation. So it does seem at least somewhat reasonable to extrapolate.
As for your size estimation counterpoint, I actually somewhat agree: perspective does throw off the scaling a wee bit. But only to an extent, which, if you bothered actually looking at his figure, you'd have realized: it says a range of 3-16 kilometres. For something like this, that's a damned huge range, and looks to me like it takes into account all perspective issues.
Yes Han Solo thought that it was a moon however Obi-Wan Kenobi immediatley identified it as a space station. I don't know about you but I think that former general and a Jedi is far more experienced than a smuggler.
Obi-wan--no offense to him, as he rocks hardcore--has been out of the loop for over twenty years. Meanwhile, Han has been all over the Empire and has gathered quite a bit of experience. Plus, he's a smuggler for crying out loud. Smugglers are renowned for having a great deal of practical knowledge and experience. They kinda have to in order to actually succeed in their field.
Further, methinks the only reason Obi-Wan knew it was a station was by sensing all the life on it through the Force. An unfair comparison overall, methinks. =/
As for all that fleet number stuff, I don't know all the numbers, but I do know a few things I can point out here:
If they indeed had tens of thousands of ships then sparing "thousands of ships" would not be a problem would it?
Warsie "oh let's not care about the loss of life" syndrome strikes again. Thousands of ships would equal hundreds of thousands of lives. Yeah, that's a pretty damned big cause for concern in my book.
As for the whole cornered on one planet bit? The Dominion were planning on fighting to the last man. Further, I'd like to point to a comparison with an event from our own history: the war with Japan in World War II. The US didn't want to invade the Japanese islands--ISLANDS, man, which are about the same size on a world scale as one planet is on a galactic scale--due to the sheer loss of life the US would suffer and whatnot, as the Japanese would be just as ruthless as the Dominion would be.
And yeah, I'd be damned worried too about an enemy concentrated on one single planet. I'm guessing you don't understand just what the numbers here entail. The small space and the sheer enormous amount of ships means that the Dominion could concievably wipe out ten times the number they've got before they're taken out. Considering their fleet number at Cardassia was probably ~5000 or so, I'd say that's a pretty damned huge problem. Try understand how stuff like this works before you argue it, bucko. Helps your arguments have merit, and keeps you from looking like a fool. Hence why I'm not arguing the rest of your post: I don't have the necessary knowledge to do so. I, unlike you, know when to back off. Oh, and I, unlike you, will actually change his mind about stuff when presented with solid evidence. Thus far, you haven't presented a shred, or at least not one that stood up to the counterfire from Mike and BHMM. Speaking of them, it's their turn to go to bat. Have fun gang.
As they've said: consider the starbase number, which is 74. We've also seen starbase numbers up to at least 375. All this leads to a reasonable assumption that among those are a large number of SB74 type stations. Consider how useful those things would be. I dunno about you, but I'd want one in orbit of at least every major planet in the Federation. So it does seem at least somewhat reasonable to extrapolate.
Yes and USS Nimitz has a registry designation CVN 68, USS Ronald Reagan has designation CVN 71. I guess that must mean that US navy has 71 aircraft carriers. And what Federation wants is irrelevan, what they can is at hand.
Obi-wan--no offense to him, as he rocks hardcore--has been out of the loop for over twenty years. Meanwhile, Han has been all over the Empire and has gathered quite a bit of experience. Plus, he's a smuggler for crying out loud. Smugglers are renowned for having a great deal of practical knowledge and experience. They kinda have to in order to actually succeed in their field.
Further, methinks the only reason Obi-Wan knew it was a station was by sensing all the life on it through the Force. An unfair comparison overall, methinks. =/
The point remains that Obi-Wan immediatley recognized the station for what it was and he was right. Therefore to use Han Solos remark to indicate the "uniqueness" of Death Stars in size while simultaneously ignoring Obi-Wan is nothing but selectively ignoring the evidence.
Warsie "oh let's not care about the loss of life" syndrome strikes again. Thousands of ships would equal hundreds of thousands of lives. Yeah, that's a pretty damned big cause for concern in my book.
That's the point. If they had tens of thousands of ships they would deploy them to overwhelm the enemy and minimize the loss of life on their side. The fact that they could only send "thousands of ships" indicates they simply didn't have more to spare.
As for the whole cornered on one planet bit? The Dominion were planning on fighting to the last man. Further, I'd like to point to a comparison with an event from our own history: the war with Japan in World War II. The US didn't want to invade the Japanese islands--ISLANDS, man, which are about the same size on a world scale as one planet is on a galactic scale--due to the sheer loss of life the US would suffer and whatnot, as the Japanese would be just as ruthless as the Dominion would be.
Your analogy is completley false. The US didn't invade the islands because they were afraid of their industrial capacity, they invaded them beacuse they needed forward bases of operations. There were no nuclear powered aircraft carriers back then remember. Once they got close enough to Japan mainland they ignored the troops on the remaining islands and went straight for Japan. Haven't you ever heard about those Japanese soldiers left on islands which thought that wars was still going on decades later? They thought that beacuse no one came to the island, becuase US ignored them.
And yeah, I'd be damned worried too about an enemy concentrated on one single planet. I'm guessing you don't understand just what the numbers here entail. The small space and the sheer enormous amount of ships means that the Dominion could concievably wipe out ten times the number they've got before they're taken out. Considering their fleet number at Cardassia was probably ~5000 or so, I'd say that's a pretty damned huge problem.
Yes the entrenched Dominion fleet was a great force. So why didn't they simply left them there to run out of fuel and resources? Beacues they predicted that Dominion will start producing ships. The industrial output of a single planet was a threat to the entire alliance.
Try understand how stuff like this works before you argue it, bucko. Helps your arguments have merit, and keeps you from looking like a fool.
I, unlike you, understand perfectly how "stuff like this" works.
To correct myself: USS Ronald Reagan has the registry number CVN 76 not 71 but the point remains.
The point is that if moon sized stations were common it would be Han solo who would know, not a guy who has been living on a backwater planet for 20 years. Obi-wan using the force to sense the station or whatever has no barren on the deathstars commonality.
You are still missing the point. He didn't know. Therefore his experience is highly questionable. Seconldy the fact that he was surprised by Death Star's size doesn't really tell us anything about what was considered "normal" in their universe.
If I remember correctly it wasn't so much that the dominion wold crush the alliance from cardasia. It was that they would grow stronger and make defeating them that more difficult. It was cheaper in life and ships to hit them then , then wait four or five years and fight a force two or three times bigger.
Bud their shipbuilding capacity was a concern. If they had significantly greater industrial capacity than Cardassia they could've simply wait a few years before building an overwhelming force. Therefore the industrial capacity of a single planet is comparable to the entire alliance. This confirms that only planets such as Earth, Qo'nos, Romulus and Cardassia are major industrial centres while most of other planets are insignificant colonies of few thousand people such as we have seen many times throught Star Trek.
Another excellent example comes from ST6 when the depletion of ozone from Qo'nos, a single planet, meant the practical extermination of Klingon race and death of their Empire.
There is no reason to doubt his experience. Between him and Obi-wan he is the most up to date person on the workings of imperials. Since he did not know of stations of that size, it is logical to assume that stations did not exist on that size before hand.
So if some smuggler today doesn't says that US navy cannot build a ship of certain size even though a former admiral immediatley recognizes it for what it is we are supposed to take sumgglers word as seriously as that of a former admiral?
That plan would allow the Dominon to bunker down, and what not making a costly victory. Far easier to hit them when thier down and end it, then let them sit there and grow stronger.
The Dominion already was bunkered down at Cardassia. The alliance predicted 40% losses yet they were still willing to go through with it. If their combined industrial output was many times greater than that of Cardassia they would have waited for a few years to increase their numerical advantage and decrease the loss of life.
The destuction of your homeworld does that to your empire. That doens't mean they had the only production falcilities however.
No it doesn't. But it does mean that Qo'nos took up most of their industrial capacity.
If the adrimal had been living under a rock for the past 20 years, and you expect the ship to be a common design not a rare ultra secrete one, then yes I will take the smuggler over the adrimal. Assuming that merely figureing out the thing is, is somekind of decralation that the tech is common. Considering the "adrimal" has mystical abilities I feel your theroy is shaky at best.
Smuggler was wrong. I cannot understand how you can keep pretending about his expertise in light of such obvious fatcs.
"It's too big to be a battle station!"
Yet there it was right before his eyes.
It would be worse years later. That much is obviouse.
How could it be worse later when they rebuild their fleet?...unless the Cardassia has a comparable industrial capacity.
Incorrect. While the percentage would have went down the number of lives would have went up. The dominon goal was to fight to the last man. TO make victory as costly and painful as possible. No matter how many ships were sent in, alot of alliance troops were going to die. Better to lose 40% now then send in twice the ships and lose 20% a year later.
Do you know anything about combat? If they sent twice as much ships they would have twice as much firepower which means they would be able to destroy the enemy ships twice as quickly which would naturally cut their losses in half.
Again no. It simply means that with the loss of thier homeworld, and the burdern of transporting and caring for refugees would destablize and break apart the empire.
"They are dying" as the Spcock said. They needed Federation help merley to survive let alone save their economy.
1.) There is simply no way to compare a mere 1,000-2,000 ships estimate to a hard LOWER limits of 2,120. That assumes that there are only 10 fleets, and those fleets are limited to 100-312 ships each.
Uhuh. Your assumptions are now HARD limits are they?
2.) The SB-74 stations are comfirmed to be at least 4 strong in number, yet there still is the mystery of the Spacedock/SB-74 station at Utopia Planita as seen in "Booby Trap". If UP station is big enough to fit a GCS, then it follows there's also a good chance it is an SB-74 type. So that makes it up to 5.
We see 4 stations of this type therefore this is what we use when discuss their industrial capacity. Everything else is nothing but unsupported assumptions.
3.) the "dumbell" UP space stations can only be placed at a lower limit of around 3 km. By scaling based on the smallest windows observed on those stations, we can get well past 10 km, and more likely 16 km. However, let us not get distracted with red herrings; the existance of these multi-km stations add to the list. Thus, such stations in scale are not rare in the least.
How can you possibly get 10 km by scaling from windows? If we assume that windows were 1px tall in the screen you used and that they are 3m tall the station would have to be 3300px tall. Not even the best DVD film quality has that kind of resolution. But by all means link to the picture you used for scaling.
4.) How many of the 30,000-strong Dominon and allied fleet are the JH attack ships? Who cares? Those are fighters like the Tantive IV is a fighter. The JH attack ships are 90-plus meter long vessels! Anon Warsie's argument is as silly here as a pro-Trek person stating that the Imperial fleet is weak because it might have Corvettes and Frigates in it's fleet. Not to mention, we saw that the Dominion was capable of building many large capital ships in excess of 600 meters throughout the war. It is a fallacy to bring up the fact that the JH attack ships didn't outright destroy the Odyssey with their phased polaron weapons right off the bat (and they nearly destroyed one of the escort runabouts, but those ships weren't their primary target). Again would you expect a Tantive to take out an ISD with it's guns? No. At any rate, it moot. The simple fact is that the Dominion fleet with allies numbers some 30,000 ships strong, and in order for the Federation and it's allies to hold out (note that the battle swung back and forth many times during the course of the war), requires comparable numbers, particularly since the actual Dominion vessels themselves were on an equal or greater technological footing to the Federation and allies. And yes, the Federation and allies were winning, regardless of the setbacks in "What You Leave Behind", and well before the Cardassian fleet switched sides. The whole point of the final push to Cardassia was to defeat the Dominion before it could rebuild. And remember, the Romulan represenative in "The Dogs of War" was concerned over losing thousands of ships, but at no point says that that will wipe out all of the allies' ships. It's getting silly how the Warsies just won't admit to the possibility of a Federation with some 10,000 or so ships.
Don't twist my words. I didn't say the Jem'Hadar suck because they didn't managed to destroy a Galxy outright but they failed to destroy it after a minute. That is pathetic especially considering that an outdated Bird of prey could do it in Generations.
You also haven't even mentioned Galors which also stand no chance aginsta a Galaxy and even an unshielded Nebula managed to destroy an unspecified Cardassian ship, probably a Galor. Not to mention Romulan warbirds which can drop Enterpriese shields by 70% with a single volley.
It shouldn't be suprising nor difficult to believe given that a single SB-74 is worth 11,000 GCS spaceframes...
Really? So why do you refuse to believe tens of millions of ships for Galactic Empire since the Death Star has a volume of 20 million ISDs.
5.) I'am sick of the Warsies trotting out the tired old "Han is an idiot" fallacy. Han, like it or not, is an experianced spacer and smuggler. The only reason Obi-Wan probably realized the DS1 was a space station, and not a moon was because of his Force sensitivity allowed him foresight. What this means is that DS-sized space stations are UNUSUAL. They are RARE, and UNHEARD of until the ANH-era. What are normal SW space stations like? Don't know. We've never been shown any in the true canon, and little or nothing mentioned in the secondary canon of the novelizations. But whatever form they take, it's a sure bet it's NOTHING like the Death Stars!
Obviously the Death Stars were not common but what was? What size was considered common in SW galaxy? Take a look at Cloud City which is a multikilometer station which can suspend itself inside an atmosphere of a gas giant. Not only was it beneath the notice of an totalitarian Empire but it was owned by a "scoundrel" who got it by gambling. So we are talking spacedock sized stations being won and lost in freaking poker games. Not to mention that 17km SSD was still considered a starship not a "battlestation".
But whatever form they take, it's a sure bet it's NOTHING like the Death Stars!
What does "nothing like" mean? How much smaller are the other battlestations? Even if they are 10 times smaller that is still far beyond anything the Federation has ever built.
We see 4 stations of this type therefore this is what we use when discuss their industrial capacity.
Everything else is nothing but unsupported assumptions.
Oh, I just love this kind of logic. Let me try: The Empire has only, what... 20 ISDs? And no battle stations except two Death Stars.
Why? Because that's all we see :)
Just to add to the whole GCS vs. Bird of Prey thing: everyone seems to forget that the only reason the Bird of Prey stood a chance was the whole knowing the shield modulation bit, done via a probe placed in Geordi's VISOR. One of the Duras sisters even said, before Soran blabbed about the VISOR bit: "That is a Galaxy-class starship! We are no match for them!"
The Duras sisters took advantage of the whole modulation bit and seriously damaged the Enterprise in their first couple volleys, as Data even said there were hull breeches on decks 31-35. If I were them, I'd have targeted weapons first and then power systems, which would explain why the phaser blast did bull-honkey on the Bird of Prey's shields. Quite honestly, the entire battle in Generations is rather special, and thus suspect at best in terms of using to determine strength for anything. =/
How could it be worse later when they rebuild their fleet?...unless the Cardassia has a comparable industrial capacity.
Miss the point. Allies COULDN'T maintain the blockade, they had either to crush Cardassia or withdraw and allow dominion to use all cardassian planets.
You also haven't even mentioned Galors which also stand no chance aginsta a Galaxy and even an unshielded Nebula managed to destroy an unspecified Cardassian ship, probably a Galor. Not to mention Romulan warbirds which can drop Enterpriese shields by 70% with a single volley.
Pre-dominion Galors stood no chance. Dominion upgraded them and they were very powerful.
D'Deridex are more powerful, as they use "small artifficial singularities", but they are rare.
Don't twist my words. I didn't say the Jem'Hadar suck because they didn't managed to destroy a Galaxy outright but they failed to destroy it after a minute. That is pathetic especially considering that an outdated Bird of prey could do it in Generations.
BOP used torpedoes, JH only beams. With beams, Bop wouldn't acvcomplis anything. Also Odyssey was beaten to crap, loosing half of systems within a minute. E-D had all systems OK - EXCEPT for all-decicing warp core, which was destabilized during the last lucky BOP shot. It was a lackyy winning - hitting a spot so that some debris hit the core and it slowy lost balance. It is the same as saying "X-Wings are better than Calamari, as they destroyed a Death Star". One lucky shot that destroyed a ship almost undamaged. JH contarary to that, did whole job. Also, why compare SMALLEST ships to the LARGEST.
Answering to Mike Dicenso
Let's see first you mumble something about Federation having "heavy losses" to the Klingons without providing any numbers and then conclude that 2,122 is a HARD lower limit. Sorry it doesn't work that way.
Then you try to tackle my point about individual ship strengths:
The JH attack ships versus a Galaxy versus a Bird of Prey. The battle with the Bird of Prey took a number of minutes, even then the E-D was not lost until a few minutes later (enough time to allow for total evacuation of all personel to the saucer, and then perform a saucer seperation before warp core breach). The JH ships probably could have kept pounding the Odyssey until she blew up in a similar manner, but the suicide run was done to show the Federation just far the Dominion was willing to go in fight. Again, there's that nagging little thing called "facts" and "context" here that keep getting lost...
Of course you neglect to mention that the outdated BoP from generations was destroyed by exploiting the well known weakness of that model. You neglect to mention that there were 3 Jem'Hadar fighters and only one BoP. Yes the context is indeed lost on you.
Individual ship strength. Yes, you can nitpick in little details about how a D'Deridex warbird can pound down the shields of a GCS in a few seconds, or what-have-you.
I laughed my ass off when I read this gem. So the fact that D'Deridex can blow Galaxy to shit in a few seconds while ships Galor and Jem'Hadar fighters barely stand a chance aginst an unshielded Galaxy is nitpicking to you?
In conclusion I can only point to "Sacrifice of Angels" where the Federation defeats the Dominion fleet even though it's outnumbered 2:1.
4.) The Death Stars and SB-74s. What do they mean? We have for the Federation, unlike the Empire, a good idea that there are thousands, possible more than 10,000 ships. The commonplace construction of large space stations, be they Spacedocks, SB-74s, or UPs means that sacrificing one SB-74 will mean thousands of new spaceframes.
Here you go again with "commonplace". We saw a grand total of 4 S74 and those station from Utopia Planitia were never scaled properly. Not to mention that existance of those station at the primary shipyard of the Federation hardly points to them being commonplace.
We have no idea, except guess-work that that MIGHT be true, if the Empire decided to ramp up and build tens of millions of ISDs beyond the DSs. In fact, as was pointed out before, we don't know canonically if the Death Stars drained the Imperial budget such that only a few thousand or tens of thousands of ISD equivalent ships were built above and beyond them. Certainly the account of anti-captial ship TLs on the DS1 suggests that the Imperial fleet at the time of ANH did not number more than the tens of thousands strong.
But we do have canonical evidence on how much resources the Death Star took. The Rebels had to send spies to die in order to learn the location of the new Death Star and even then it was only because the Emperor leaked the information. Obviously if something like 50% of material produced in the Galaxy was being transported to one place it wouldn't be hard to track it. Even 10% would be impossible to cover up. Not to mention the manpower, how could the Empire keep the location a secret if 50% of workers were transported to that place?
It is obvious that construction of the Death Star was an insignificant blow to the Imperial industrial capacity.
5.)The Cloud City was not necessarily "beneath the Empire's notice". It was the stated mining operation that they ran there. We've also only seen one large civilian space station in SW (the Bespin Cloud City), whereas we have seen in Trek a large city floating around on Ardana ("The Cloud Minders" [TOS]), and massive multi-km station in the Delta quadrent in "Survival Instincts" that no one on the Voyager crew seems to think unusual.
They didn't have a garrison there so obviously the entire station was beneath the notice. And what's up with bringing up Delta Quadrant stations which have nothing to do with the Federation?
And we know of only ONE city like the Bespin one lost and won in a game of chance. Show me it's common, especially where a top-notch super-conman like Lando is concerned.
You really are desperate aren't you? "Super-duper extra-special conman Lando!" He lost Millenium Falcon to Han so he wasn't really invincible was he? And you are missing the point. The fact that individuals are willing to stake such stations on a game "of poker" points to the level of industrial capacity and wealth of Star Wars galaxy. If a "scoundrel" can play games where multikilometer stations are stakes how much resources did Trade Federation or InterGalactic Banking clan have? And how much resources does Galactic Empire have?
A.) The stations are constrained by a size where Luke and especially experianced spacer Han Solo are NOT going to mistake them for "small moons". The DS1 was "too big to be a space station". If Han had encountered a station, or knew of one that was spherical and even just half the diameter of the DS1, he's have likely not gotten fooled so easily. So the average SW space station simply cannot be a mere 10 times smaller in volume than the DS1, but more likely 10 times or smaller in linear dimensions. That means a normal SW station is likely not to be more than 12 or so km in size on the outside. And given the need for SW ships to land their vessels due to a lack of transporter technology, having SB-74 equivalent stations makes little sense when you can just land on a planet easily enough with repulsor lifts, just as we saw in AoTC and RoTS, get serviced, and then relaunched. I found it very curious indeed in the PT that we did not see even around heavily industrialized world Courscant massive orbital infrastructures. If anyplace would have DS-sized stations orbiting it, it would be there. Yet there is nothing...
Two things:
1.Your derivation of numbers from Solo's "it's too big to be a space staion" is ridiculous. We have no way of knowing what Han Solo considered normal but we do know that Bespin Cloud City was not considered anything special.
2.Term "Space Station" in SW jargon usually describes a mobile armed ship rather than a free floating installation like in Star Trek. A civilisation that can land fleets of kilometer long ships directly on the surface will have little need for such starbases.
7.) Scaling the Utopia Planitia Stations. You can, I hope you know, obtain hight-resolution images of the stations in the scenes from "Relativity", or obtain pictures of the CG model used. Alyeska posted a low-quality one on Strek-vs-Swars.Net forum, and on SDN's Pure Star Trek forum a few months ago. Scaling off the smallest windows (like the ones at the base of the hemispheres) you can wind up with a station well in excess of 10 km. Just scaling based on the GCS seen nearest to the stations in the episode, yeilds a lower limit of around 3 km.
In that picture the station is 470px high. If we assume that smallest windows are 1m and 1px high that would make the station 470m tall. How did you come up with 3km lower limit? And there is no way you can get 10km.
Of course you neglect to mention that the outdated BoP from generations was destroyed by exploiting the well known weakness of that model. You neglect to mention that there were 3 Jem'Hadar fighters and only one BoP. Yes the context is indeed lost on you.
BoP wasn't outdated. THIS SHIP had a design flaw. Also, it's irrelevant. The torpedoes were new. The Bopp just had to survive long enough to launch al;l his torpedoes (and failed).
Actually, 3 fighters with 1000 ytime less volume than GCS doing ANY damage through beams is extrelmely good. Normally, the ONLY way in ST for fighters top be useful is via torpedoes.
This is WAY better than 3 fighters destroying an unshielded Executor, which has 1000000000 the volume.
I just noticed your site and the "cloaking" argument which states that Star Wars cloaking is inferior to Star Trek cloaking. While it may be true, your first argument was flawed.
Captain Needa says of the Millenium Falcon, "No ship that small has a cloaking device!" However, I looked up Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator, which I know HAPPENS TO HAVE A CLOAKING DEVICE. It is about 26 meters in length, only slightly larger than the Romulan Runabout, and because the front end is flat it probably has less internal volume. Captain Needa just knew nothing about cloaking devices. Admittedly, you are still correct in stating that Star Trek's devices are smaller- but your first argument is flawed.
AW,
I'm not sure you're right. But it could be just me who hadn't seen TPM in a while... Has it been seen cloaked in the movie at all?
Sincerely,
Another Anonymous
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