Battle Of Sector 001

[Tenebrae]

In the course of my daily rummagings on internet, I found:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sector_001

 

Potential losses 350 ships? Over 500 included.

 

If that's even half right, I feel the scale of the battle - even if Picard and co turned up late - was rather underplayed in the battle. I mean, that's a pretty serious fight - easily on a par with the big fight seen in Sacrifice of Angels but just from my recollection, it didn't seem a fraction of that.

 

So the question is - is Wiki woefully misinformed, or was the battle not done justice?

[Jounin]

It didn't seem as big as the sacrifice of angels fight scene. I think wiki may be off, though there could be some sort of 3rd party tech manual or star trek almanac that that figure is based on.

[TetsuoShima]

Allways nice when there is some guess-work questioned. :)

 

imo they should not place that there, those numbers 350/500... Since their is absolutely no 'real' evidence for that. the only way to 'know' this, would be if it was actually mentioned somewhere (which is not so afaik), or if they counted all those ships, in which case they would most certainly not get up to 500, or even 200 for that matter.

 

So, it is not a fact, it is just a very rough guess, I'd say...

Might as well say 200/300 for that matter, just as much chance of being correct... :)

[queenhank]

Have you counted the ships in that scene to be sure? I'm not saying you're wrong, just wondering if perhaps you are simply mistaken as to how many ships were in that scene.

 

And besides, the Enterprise was at the neutral zone when Starfleet engaged the Borg. Wouldn't that make it at least a few hours before they got back to Earth?

[Mav]

Let's not forget that, most times in a fight when a ship loses, it's destroyed. Meaning in our terms "blown up". Sometimes we see large chunks of whats left over, just as we saw when the Enterprise D got to what was left at Wolf 359. Other times the entire ship blows apart, and if lucky whats left is just small debris that really serve no noticeble purpose in being able to be seen.

 

It's quite plausible many ships came but as DS9 went on, if the Federation had 500+ ships (including some from the Klingons and Vulcans) how come we barely mustered a "small" fleet in DS9's fights? And that was including the Romulans.....Assuming the wormhole and mines were an issue, the Dominion could have just overrun us with Jem Ha'dar ships.

[Tenebrae]

I'll leave ship counting to you, my dear queenhank ;)

 

I'm simply curious as to just how someone could come up those numbers.

[TFMF]

Consider the size of the Federation Fleet - then they would send at least 75% of that fleet to protect earth from the Borg...

 

obviously cause of budgets we wouldn't see that fleet but would the numbers 350/500 be right?

[queenhank]

I'm simply curious as to just how someone could come up those numbers.

 

I'd be willing to bet that someone said it in DS9 at some point.

[Steveo]

It's most probably an obscure reference, like "We lost 1/3 of the fleet" then someone found a line where someone mentioned the size of the fleet and woked out, a very tenuous, number of ships lost.

[Marcroft]

I'm simply curious as to just how someone could come up those numbers.

 

I'd be willing to bet that someone said it in DS9 at some point.

 

Huge DS9 fan here - and there was definitely no reference in the show of the size of the Federation Fleet that engaged the 2nd Borg attack at Sector 001.

 

There wasn't even a reference to the fact that the Defiant had been damaged, and needed to be repaired.

 

 

[queenhank]

But was there ever a reference to how big the fleet is in general? Perhaps such a mention was made in TNG as well, and the number in DS9 was something like 500 less.

[Mav]

obviously cause of budgets we wouldn't see that fleet but would the numbers 350/500 be right?

 

Possibly. If I recall the canon correctly, Starfleet is in charge of diplomatic and military issues of the United Federation of Planets, both of whom's headquarters are located on Terra Prime (Earth). If you take into account what Admiral (whatshisname, the one that liked Commander Shelby) said about "even thinking about contacting the Romulans" it's possible. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume along with Starfleet's, fleet, other Federation members also helped as well as allies (Klingons, etc).

 

I think the majority of Starfleets ships aren't what you think. They all aren't Galaxy class cruisers, most are the offshoots usually used for medical research or scientific research. While not nearly as powerful as a Galaxy class ship they still can defend themselves to an extent. And aganist the Borg at that point I do not doubt the President of the Federation would hesitate to call in every last ship he could.

[Tenebrae]

Well, that's always been an issue for me - the Federation never did warships... except for the Defiant and they bottled mass producing that until some point during the Dominion war. Their ships aren't helpless but they're more for exploration than fighting and regardless what Picard says about people fighting harder because their family are onboard - there are certain inescapable pracatical drawbacks to having a ship that is essentially full of kindergartens instead of weapons and engines.

 

Naturally though, there is an emergency button that when pressed, magically creates sufficient ships to fight any enemy and give the Federation a fighting chance.

 

If we'd seen 500 ships hammering away at the same point on that cube before it exploded, maybe the Borg would seem like such a bunch of fairies.

[Steveo]

The Borg, sadly, now do look like they're about as scary to the Federation as a spot of bad weather.

 

First Contact could have changed that with about one line "We've lost 300 ships, sir."

[Tenebrae]

Yeah, they didn't really convey any sense of desperation in First Contact. More like a WW2 film.

 

"Telly ho chaps! Looks like the Borg have got the upper hand, pip pip, what?"

 

Which is a shame, that would have dovetailed quite nicely with the Borg on the Enterprise.

[Mav]

What I don't get is, well two things really. After re-watching "Sacrifice of Angels" (DS9 6x06) I wonder how we got so badly pwned by a single Borg cube. Debates on adaptation and such put aside, in Sacrifice of Angels, the Dominion sends over 1200 ships to counter attack the Fleet. Bashir says "they outnumber us 2 to 1" which we can assume means our fleet, minus the Klingons and Romulans at the time, was around 600+ ships. Factor in the Klingons who arrive with Worf later on, plus as the last two seasons progress the Romulans joining, we're looking at probably close to 800+ ships easily (after repairs and replacements made).

 

And all this was organized within roughly two days time. Yet in Best of Both Worlds, if I recall right, they had roughly the same amount of time but not nearly as many ships? Surely the Klingons would see the Borg as a most worthy adversary and be eager to defend the Alpha Quadrant at Wolf 359. Even in First Contact most of the "Fleet" which was maybe a hundred ships, at most, got badly pwned by one Cube until Picard arrived and took control (cheesey but effective).

 

So if we could muster that much force that quickly shouldnt we have been able to take down the Cube at Wolf 359? Hundreds apon hundreds of ships all concentrating their firepower on one point of the Cube would break down their shields, despite "Adapting".

[Nightmare]

What I don't get is, well two things really. After re-watching "Sacrifice of Angels" (DS9 6x06) I wonder how we got so badly pwned by a single Borg cube. Debates on adaptation and such put aside, in Sacrifice of Angels, the Dominion sends over 1200 ships to counter attack the Fleet. Bashir says "they outnumber us 2 to 1" which we can assume means our fleet, minus the Klingons and Romulans at the time, was around 600+ ships. Factor in the Klingons who arrive with Worf later on, plus as the last two seasons progress the Romulans joining, we're looking at probably close to 800+ ships easily (after repairs and replacements made).

 

And all this was organized within roughly two days time. Yet in Best of Both Worlds, if I recall right, they had roughly the same amount of time but not nearly as many ships? Surely the Klingons would see the Borg as a most worthy adversary and be eager to defend the Alpha Quadrant at Wolf 359. Even in First Contact most of the "Fleet" which was maybe a hundred ships, at most, got badly pwned by one Cube until Picard arrived and took control (cheesey but effective).

 

So if we could muster that much force that quickly shouldnt we have been able to take down the Cube at Wolf 359? Hundreds apon hundreds of ships all concentrating their firepower on one point of the Cube would break down their shields, despite "Adapting".

 

I agree - The sheer number of ships shoul have easily taken out one cube and if that didnt work why not just ram a ship into the cube at warp.

 

Now if there were say 5-10 borg cubes - that that would be believeable.

 

[Tenebrae]

I think that the explanation given for the destruction of the cube in First Contact is that cubes have a glass jaw - shoot them enough and they explode (here comes the treknobabble).

 

There is a difference between Wolf 359 and Sacrifice of Angels. Which is naturally that Wolf 359 changed the Federations perspective... plus the battle in Sacrifice of Angels was a long time coming, the Borg attack on Earth was a bit of a blind sider.

 

Presumably by First Contact, they'd got a better response system in place.

[queenhank]

Yeah, I mean, at Wolf 359, they didn't really know what the Borg were capable of. They knew that one cube outclassed a Galaxy-class ship, but no idea really by how much. For all they knew, a Galaxy-class and any other ship would be enough. They probably figured they were doing a bit of overkill with the number of ships they had at Wolf 359. I always saw that battle as kind of like the Federation's Bay of Pigs.

 

I think that the explanation given for the destruction of the cube in First Contact is that cubes have a glass jaw - shoot them enough and they explode

 

Well, remember, Picard heard about power fluctuations, and knew about one very specific spot. Starfleet knows that Borg ships are fractal in nature, and thus can be mostly destroyed, and yet still fully functional. Hitting one spot will destroy that spot, to be sure, but will have absolutely no effect on the rest of the ship. Picard remembered from his time as Locutus that those power fluctuations indicated something going wrong. Specifically, something going wrong in such a way that would cause the entire cube to be destroyed if that certain part were destroyed.

 

Hundreds apon hundreds of ships all concentrating their firepower on one point of the Cube would break down their shields, despite "Adapting".

 

Well, that's the beauty of Borg technology. Once they have adapted to your weapons, your fire has no more effect on their shields than sunlight does. The shields adapt by becoming able to absorb and dissipate the specific energy signature of your weapons. It doesn't take any power at all to do that each time, so you are never going to "wear down" their shields. That's why you have to take out the shield emitters themselves, or just destroy the ship.

[Tenebrae]

Given the initial encounter at Q Who - the Federation knew that a cube was more than a match

 

As to the glass jaw, I'm sure I saw some treknobabble that said basically if you just beat on a cube hard enough it caused a feedback loop and then BANG. That was non-canon though... but yeah, given that he remembers everything from being Locutus it seems reasonable that his insider knowledge let him lay the smackdown.

 

I've always thought Borg "shields" are kind of a sticky area because they use that subspace field... but at times that is impenetrable, then at other times, shuttles can go through but energy can't... about the only constant seems to be that the Borg are too damned stupid to stop Federation crews from beaming onboard.