What If? Star Trek Federation is transported into the 40k galaxy

ShadowArxxy

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Comrade
Hmm I had no idea the Romulan Empire was part of the UFP back in the 23rd Century. Oh wait it wasn't.

That's completely missing the point -- the Romulans *may* have such a capability if the episode isn't written off as an early inconsistency, but the Federation quite explicitly does not.
 

Sailor.X

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That's completely missing the point -- the Romulans *may* have such a capability if the episode isn't written off as an early inconsistency, but the Federation quite explicitly does not.
Sigh the Federation does have that capability. You don't use such a thing against the Borg because any ship that gets subverted by the Borg. Will give the Borg access to your network. It should be bloody obvious to you.
 

ShadowArxxy

Well-known member
Comrade
Sigh the Federation does have that capability. You don't use such a thing against the Borg because any ship that gets subverted by the Borg. Will give the Borg access to your network. It should be bloody obvious to you.

Sigh. And now you're reflexively defending the Federation to the point of mixing up two different points of discussion. The Romulans possibly having a capability which the Federation explicitly doesn't was talking about independent warp torpedoes versus warp sustainer only torpedoes, and had absolutely nothing to do with tactical datanets.

There is no canonical evidence that the Federation has any sort of tactical networking in the TNG era, no evidence that the Borg specifically messed with their tactical net at Wolf 359 as opposed to simply outclassing them, and no evidence that the Federation or Picard were in any way adapting from that by giving manual, verbal firing orders during the Battle of Earth.

Indeed, Federation starships have always been seen onscreen coordinating exclusively by verbal command. The only exception I'm aware of is in Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, where a squadron of Starfleet vessels is ceded to Borg control so that they can link and perfectly synchronize their shields against a planet-killer event.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Honestly on the firepower front the federation aren't slouches since they do canonically have the ability to basically glass a planet in 24 hours with a single 23rd century starship let alone the showings we see later like for example the Enterprise D vaporizing a good chunk of a borg cube in a single phaser volley before the borg adapted.
And given the sheer size of a borg cube we can be very conservative and say worst case scenario that volley vaporized at least a cubic kilometer
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
Honestly on the firepower front the federation aren't slouches since they do canonically have the ability to basically glass a planet in 24 hours with a single 23rd century starship let alone the showings we see later like for example the Enterprise D vaporizing a good chunk of a borg cube in a single phaser volley before the borg adapted.
And given the sheer size of a borg cube we can be very conservative and say worst case scenario that volley vaporized at least a cubic kilometer

They are not, but average firepower showings are higher for Imperium than for Federation.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
They are not, but average firepower showings are higher for Imperium than for Federation.
Albeit the imperium starships being so much larger on average probably accounts for a lot of that.
Honestly on a per ton and unit of volume basis I suspect federation ships are vastly more powerful. It's just that the imperium has a lot more tons per ship
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
Albeit the imperium starships being so much larger on average probably accounts for a lot of that.
Honestly on a per ton and unit of volume basis I suspect federation ships are vastly more powerful. It's just that the imperium has a lot more tons per ship

Both Star Trek and 40k have cases where a fleet essentially stripped the planet of its crust; but to my knowledge, 40k tends to have more of them. And from what I remember, firepower per emplacement seems similar between high end Star Trek such as TDiC and higher end IoM warship showings.



Imperial battlebarge in the video above does, on its own, about the damage entire TDiC fleet of 20 ships was said to do. And this is also supported by stuff such as Badab War. In the Caves of Ice, it was likewise stated that a flotilla (so maybe 3 ships as per BFG) could destroy a continent as well as the Necrons buried underneath:
Nothing in our inventory would even come close to doing the job, but an astropathic message to the nearest naval unit would bring a task force here within weeks, and a flotilla of battleships ought to be enough to level the continent. A couple of barrages from their lance batteries would be enough to excise this cancer, however deeply it was buried.

Of course the planet would be rendered uninhabitable for generations, but no one in their right mind would be willing to set foot here once the necron presence was known in any case, so the question was moot.
And this from Xenos:
I watched 56-Izar die from the bridge of the Saint Scythus as we left orbit. Petals of flame, the size of continents, spread out under its milky skin. Sanction Extremis. Exterminatus.
After the deluge of fire, the virus bombs. The seething storms of tailored plagues. The nuclear atrocity.
It was a cinder by the time we left. No contact with the saruthi race was ever made again.

Of course, both universes vary wildly in terms of firepower.
 

Sailor.X

Cold War Veteran
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Sigh. And now you're reflexively defending the Federation to the point of mixing up two different points of discussion. The Romulans possibly having a capability which the Federation explicitly doesn't was talking about independent warp torpedoes versus warp sustainer only torpedoes, and had absolutely nothing to do with tactical datanets.

There is no canonical evidence that the Federation has any sort of tactical networking in the TNG era, no evidence that the Borg specifically messed with their tactical net at Wolf 359 as opposed to simply outclassing them, and no evidence that the Federation or Picard were in any way adapting from that by giving manual, verbal firing orders during the Battle of Earth.

Indeed, Federation starships have always been seen onscreen coordinating exclusively by verbal command. The only exception I'm aware of is in Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, where a squadron of Starfleet vessels is ceded to Borg control so that they can link and perfectly synchronize their shields against a planet-killer event.
You are literally typing this with a straight face when this has been a thing since the 23rd Century.


So yes Starfleet ships are data linked otherwise the Prefix codes would never ever be effective.
 

S'task

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The only exception I'm aware of is in Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard, where a squadron of Starfleet vessels is ceded to Borg control so that they can link and perfectly synchronize their shields against a planet-killer event.
The Federation has the capability to automatically coordinate ships if they desire to. This was demonstrated by multi-vector attack mode of the USS Prometheus back in Voyager, at least. But this falls back to something that people constantly forget: Starfleet doesn't trust heavy automation over starship systems. They had some very bad results of this back in TOS, and more recently.

Long story short, Starfleet ALWAYS wants human hands on the ship in question aiming and pulling the trigger for their weapons. Is it more inefficient, most certainly, but it ensures a level of responsibility with high powered weapons with everyone involved having direct knowledge of who has the final judgement call.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
1. Despite their vaunted sensors, the Federation ships were completely unable to detect the vulnerable point in question. Picard had to order them to manually target this coordinate based on tapping the Borg Cube's own systems using his remaining implants, and even then Data immediately protested that this "did not appear to be a vital system".

Indeed they couldn't detect it through that is likely more due to their unfamiliarity with Borg technology and ship structure than a fault in the sensors themselves. Which could by all accounts detect and track the Borg ship, give an estimate on the damage it had sustained ect. So this is hardly a crippling example.


2. After Picard stated he was "taking command of the fleet", he ordered every surviving ship to target and fire on the coordinates he gave. We then see on screen only seven ships (including Enterprise) firing on that spot with several volleys of phasers and then also torpedoes. This makes it clear that the Federation lacks tactical networking or even basic automated target handoff capability; orders to coordinate fire need to be relayed verbally and manually executed by individual ships "as they bear".

We may see only seven ships fire through with how our vantage point jumps around we can't really say how many actually did or not.

Further Picard does not just give verbal orders. He takes command and orders everyone to fire on his signal on a set of coordinates which he then keys into the Enterprise console and transmits. Presumably sending the coordinates to each ship's tactical systems so they could then in turn extrapolate when and how to fire.

We also know from such episodes as the TNG episode Redemption Part I that there's a difference between acquiring a target manually and a "target lock", the latter being detectable by an opposing ship, so there is some target acquisition ability. As for how automated it is we can't say through First Contact would be a poor example since it was against a previously unknown target.

It is mentioned by Picard himself in "Star Trek: Picard" that the Picard Maneuver is completely useless against a large fleet. The reason is not explicitly stated, but appears self-evident -- a large fleet can simply fire at both locations at once instead of having to pick one. Unfortunately, this also makes the Picard Maneuver equally useless against even single 40K warships, which are capable of engaging multiple targets at once using their numerous independently targeted, simultaneously powered weapons batteries.
The Picard Maneuver involve a brief jump to warp speed to present the optical illusion of two ships to confuse an enemy. Honestly it shouldn't work against one ship, granted the one case it was successful was against a Ferengi, considering how sensors/ space combat is presented in later episodes but even handwaving that it only works one on one with two roughly equal parties allowing you to quickly overwhelm your opponent in a single salvo.

That said your speculation as to the "completely useless" nature of Picard Maneuvers doesn't make sense. After all you don't need a "large fleet" to target two ships. Or even more than one since Federation ships, Klingon, Romulans ect all have more than a single weapon array.

Granted this is Picard so "logic" likely doesn't factor into things but there you go.

Not that I expect the Picard Maneuver to be of any value in this engagement nor have I, to my knowledge, even brought it up. Viewing the idea of using warp speed to run circles around the bedeviled and impotent Imperial fleet a far more effective strategy under the current parameters.

The Tau do actually use the Warp. They just skim across it in microjumps that don't tend to really immerse them completely. Slower than the rest of 40K Warp travel, but also generally much safer.

Fair point. I mostly just meant they found a way to avoid traveling through the Warp the same way the Imperium does.

Not necessary but appreciated.
Anytime.

I appreciate getting to be part of the discussion here. I realize this could be construed at damning with faint praise but I really like it here more than Reddit. I haven't had this much fun in a debate in a long while. :)
 

Agent23

Ни шагу назад!
All Fed ship calcs put them in the mid to high megaton, whileas the Imperium rivals if not surpasses Star Wars in yields.
 

Battlegrinder

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Obozny
Is there any hard details on how long the Orks have been on the planet in Caves of Ice? If the Orks landed in another hemisphere and the Promethium refinery is the only installation on it I could see it taking a while for things to progress to where the story started.

There is not.

The Traitor's Hand does sound like it sharp contradiction to the usual 40k time table. Was it presented as standard or unusual? On the other hand in Death and Glory we find out, through one of the various excerpts of book within the book, that it was "several months" from the time the Orks invaded before the first of the Imperial Guard arrived. Page 44, Defender of the Imperium Omnibus.

No, it's not presented as unusual.

As for 40k, if they can scan at the range and detail why wouldn't they? It would make more sense than not using it and risking entering into an unseen enemy's range of fire.

Using active sensors is like looking for someone with a flashlight. You might be able to see them, but they will definitely see you. In ST, weapon ranges are shorter than sensor ranges, so even if you're position is exposed you won't eat a torpedo for doing so. That is not the case for 40k.

Yes, and Starfleet both employs technology that uses the completelyunknown to them subspace and are quite good with fiddling their tech. There's no reason to assume Imperial ECM is going to be particularly effective against them.

There's no reason to assume it wouldn't. Since the Picard Maneuver was brought up, it's worth noting that it works by tricking sensors via a speed of light delay, so while the federation has all sorts of advanced subspace tech, they don't seem to be able to use it in their targeting systems.

To my knowledge the Imperium doesn't have the ability to track FTL targets since no one, outside of maybe the Necron, utilize an FTL along those lines. They instead employ jumpdrives or tunnels outside of space time ect. Much like how the Federation can't detect a Warp engine equipped vessel the Imperium is going to be equally blind to warp-equipped ships.

Necron ships use an FTL drive along the lines of starfleets (in the sense they're in realspace while traveling faster than light). Do you have a quote about if they're undectable by the imperium while traveling FTL?

Because unless you do, that's not actually any evidence the imperium lacks the ability to detect ships in realspace FTL (there's no evidence for it, but that leaves this as an unknown, not a "starfleet wins").

The fact that dozens if not hundreds of vessels swarming around the Imperial fleet warping in and out will be a messy, constantly changing environment largely goes without saying. I suppose you could put the best possible spin and say its a target rich environment but I've not so far been overly impressed with Imperial accuracy. But again any examples you have I'd be happy to look at.

The federation is not going to deploy hundreds of ships to fight every single imperial incursion, and if they do they're going to run out of ships very fast.

And of course any examples of how quickly Void shields can be brought back up would be lovely to look at.

Siege of Vraks is the only example I can think of, where they pounded down a void shield with artillery, and had to keep knocking them down after they repowered, but I don't recall how long it took, and don't have time to look it right now.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
No, it's not presented as unusual.
All right that would be one point in favor of your interpretation then.

Using active sensors is like looking for someone with a flashlight. You might be able to see them, but they will definitely see you. In ST, weapon ranges are shorter than sensor ranges, so even if you're position is exposed you won't eat a torpedo for doing so. That is not the case for 40k.

Well if 40k Sensors can't reach out farther than their weapons range then they are incredibly short-ranged by Starfleet standards since the two factions share similar weapon ranges topping out at the hundreds of thousands of kilometers. So we're back to the Imperium stumbling in the dark while the Federation hammers them.

There's no reason to assume it wouldn't. Since the Picard Maneuver was brought up, it's worth noting that it works by tricking sensors via a speed of light delay, so while the federation has all sorts of advanced subspace tech, they don't seem to be able to use it in their targeting systems.
I already stated multiple reasons why we shouldn't expect it to work. From Starfleet operating on something completely alien to the Imperium to their inability to innovate to Starfleet's ability to tinker and modify their tech.

Beyond that the Omni-scrambler, what you linked me too, is a man portable unit so its an article of faith that they employ anything like it on a ship's scale.

And second, if the wiki page is accurate, appears to be designed to impede Vox communications. We don't know its range, how powerful it is ect. We have no reason to believe it would interfere with sensors.

Now with that argument out of the way, the idea that the Federation has faster than light sensors but can't employ them for targeting purposes is a nonsensical argument. If sensors are good enough to beam a person up and down, and they've beamed people at warp, then its good enough to use for targeting. The Picard Maneuver is an outlier and is contradicted by pretty much every other time we see sensors used.

Necron ships use an FTL drive along the lines of starfleets (in the sense they're in realspace while traveling faster than light). Do you have a quote about if they're undectable by the imperium while traveling FTL?
I brought up the Necrons since they are the closest faction who uses an FTL drive similar to the Federation and was willing to concede that if they could detect the Necrons then they could detect a warp-drive equipped vessel. My argument is not that "they can't detect Necrons therefore they can't detect Federation ships" but rather " Federation ships employ an alien drive using a completely alien subspace to travel at FTL velocity and since the Imperium has not, to my knowledge, ever demonstrated the ability to detect faster than light objects or detect subspace then they can't detect a warp-drive engaged vessel". It is a completely reasonable assumption to make.

The federation is not going to deploy hundreds of ships to fight every single imperial incursion, and if they do they're going to run out of ships very fast.

Every single incursion? Likely no. Nor do I expect the Federation to win all of these incursions or even most of them if the Imperium was truly serious about the affair. Barring substantial up-gunning and/or truly massive increases in ship numbers. What I'm aiming for is making the process bloody/difficult enough for the Imperium it isn't worth the bother. Under that actually stopping the incursion isn't necessarily required so much as inflicting enough damage in exchange.

Siege of Vraks is the only example I can think of, where they pounded down a void shield with artillery, and had to keep knocking them down after they repowered, but I don't recall how long it took, and don't have time to look it right now
I see.

Speaking of Void shields, I stumbled upon this example. It deals with Titan Void shields, not starships, but since both are examples of the same type of tech potentially it could be applied to ship Void shields as well.

Titanicus page 412 kindle edition said:
Augmenautus Rex was wrapped in voids of such power and cohesive performance, they could withstand anything Faero or any of the other engines fired at it. The only way to break them was sustained, erosive fire. If they all hit the same shield section hard enough, for long enough, they might force a rupture. The necessary coordinated bombardment would take minutes to arrange and accomplish.

At least from what I could gleam, it's unclear if "shield section" simply refers to geometry of the void shield itself or if Void shields are projected on select arcs and the smaller Titans are just eroding down the shield like you expect. The "might force" a rupture does make me lean more towards the former, that their exploiting a weakness in the Void shield, since the next line is the character acknowledging with dead certainty he and the other lesser Titans would never live long enough to accomplish the task so the "might" in the quote isn't in reference to that.

Regardless, since the first idea won't work the character hatches onto a scheme to link all the titans together remotely piloting them to launch a synchronized volley at the same shield sector.

Titanicus page 415 kindle edition said:
Dozens of crosshairs and target reticules overlaid and pinpointed the same small section of the Imperator's void structure, the third, lower left anterior lumbar

This make it seem much more likely that "section" in this context refers to a specific spot in a Void shield rather than just a specific shield generator.

Titanicus page 415 kindle edition said:
In a perfect action of simultaneous discharge, the merged engines opened fire...all of it struck the same ten meter square section of void shield at the same instant. The third lower left anterior lumbar distorted like blown, wet glass and popped. A nanosecond later, Augmenautus Rex experienced a system-wide, cascade shield failure as the generator blew out, attempting to compensate and underlap the remaining voids.

A single, concentrated volley from otherwise helpless lesser Titans completely overwhelmed an Imperator's shields due a sudden concentrating of fire.
 

Battlegrinder

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Obozny
Well if 40k Sensors can't reach out farther than their weapons range then they are incredibly short-ranged by Starfleet standards since the two factions share similar weapon ranges topping out at the hundreds of thousands of kilometers. So we're back to the Imperium stumbling in the dark while the Federation hammers them.

You misunderstood me. 40k weapons can reach out much farther the range where they can expect to get a positive sensor return from active sensors, so they don't run active scans to avoid giving thier position away. If Starfleet is running around blasting out sensor pings, the imperium will see them well ahead of time.

I already stated multiple reasons why we shouldn't expect it to work. From Starfleet operating on something completely alien to the Imperium to their inability to innovate to Starfleet's ability to tinker and modify their tech.

Everyone else in 40k uses completely alien technology and most are able to innovate, and that doesn't stop the imperium.

Now with that argument out of the way, the idea that the Federation has faster than light sensors but can't employ them for targeting purposes is a nonsensical argument. If sensors are good enough to beam a person up and down, and they've beamed people at warp, then its good enough to use for targeting. The Picard Maneuver is an outlier and is contradicted by pretty much every other time we see sensors used.

Given that transporters have been jammed by mild amounts of radiation, thunderstorms, and all manner of other mundane phenomenon, tryinguse them to argue that the targeting sensors are infallible is a strange claim.

" Federation ships employ an alien drive using a completely alien subspace to travel at FTL velocity and since the Imperium has not, to my knowledge, ever demonstrated the ability to detect faster than light objects or detect subspace then they can't detect a warp-drive engaged vessel".

And the issue is that given we both have a very limited amount of knowledge for 40k naval engagements, arguing that since you don't know of something happening makes it impossible isn't very convincing.
 

ShadowArxxy

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Comrade
You are literally typing this with a straight face when this has been a thing since the 23rd Century.

The prefix code system is the equivalent of Remote Desktop access, not tactical networking. They're not the same capability and having one does not prove the other.

Moreover, I would argue that given the inherent total insecurity of a fixed five digit code, the fact that the Borg can't *instantly* use prefix codes to take over everything the Federation implies that they're not actually anti-hijacking failsafes, but literally Remote Desktop for tech support and dockyard work and the only reason it worked against Khan was he didn't know it was a thing.

Indeed they couldn't detect it through that is likely more due to their unfamiliarity with Borg technology and ship structure than a fault in the sensors themselves. Which could by all accounts detect and track the Borg ship, give an estimate on the damage it had sustained ect. So this is hardly a crippling example.

The point I'm making is that it decisively refutes the claim that Federation uber-sensors can axiomatically detect weak spots in absolutely anything, even alien technology that they're completely unfamiliar with. I'd normally consider such an absurdly broad claim to be a strawman, but it's *actually being argued* in this thread.

That said your speculation as to the "completely useless" nature of Picard Maneuvers doesn't make sense. After all you don't need a "large fleet" to target two ships. Or even more than one since Federation ships, Klingon, Romulans ect all have more than a single weapon array.

Granted this is Picard so "logic" likely doesn't factor into things but there you go.

It actually does factor. For the mainline TV shows, Star Trek ships have multiple weapons arrays but rarely if ever fire multiple arrays simultaneously. This is especially true for TNG era ships, whose idea of "maximum firepower" or "fire all weapons" is repeatedly shown to actually be, "Fire one phaser strip at the target". And that actually makes a good degree of sense since the entire point of the multi-emitter phaser strip is that you can dump all of the ship's available weapons power into it. Multiple phaser arrays exist to provide broader angle coverage, not multiple fire/multiple target capacity.
 

Aldarion

Neoreactionary Monarchist
Moreover, I would argue that given the inherent total insecurity of a fixed five digit code, the fact that the Borg can't *instantly* use prefix codes to take over everything the Federation implies that they're not actually anti-hijacking failsafes, but literally Remote Desktop for tech support and dockyard work and the only reason it worked against Khan was he didn't know it was a thing.

Prefix codes also worked against the Phoenix, when Picard gave the code to Cardassians which allowed them to bring down USS Phoenix' shields. But that is all it did, and Maxwell still handily wiped the floor with the Cardassians.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
You misunderstood me. 40k weapons can reach out much farther the range where they can expect to get a positive sensor return from active sensors, so they don't run active scans to avoid giving thier position away. If Starfleet is running around blasting out sensor pings, the imperium will see them well ahead of time.

I'm not sure passive sensors would be able to work in this context. It works for a naval setting since submarines are constantly putting out signal/noise which is conducted through the medium they move through. So if you get a "ping" you can start stealthily searching for the source.

That's not really the case in space where not only would sound not travel but at the distances we're discussing even light is going to be considerably delayed and that's if its even detectable by the Imperials. So there's no real way to "see" the Federation starships.

Assuming the sensors beams used by the Federation are opaque to Imperial receivers that won't show them very much or, if ships are constantly sweeping beams back or forth, possibly anything at all with them detecting merely an amorphous, ever shifting wall of energy bombarding them.

And all of this presumes the Imperium actively uses/employs passive sensors to a meaningful degree. Consider the case of the Diasporex. The Iron Hands spent nearly five months pursuing them around the Carollis system with it being a plot point the Diasporex were refueling from the system's star in order to resume their nomadic journey. Further we're told there are no other ships operating in the entire region beyond the Iron Hands and the Disaporex which is how they discovered the latter's existence when they detected Vox communication they couldn't account for.

Yet they could not find them, even through they want a confrontation and are actively pursuing an enemy who's primarily interested in running and hiding with the occasional ambush. Not even passively detecting the Diasporex's drive emissions which since they're constantly maneuvering around the system should paint a pretty trail.

Everyone else in 40k uses completely alien technology and most are able to innovate, and that doesn't stop the imperium.
Only the Tau would be comparable to the Federation. Necrons and Eldar have their ancient technology. Orks, while their creations are ramshackle, are all based on the Old One's knowledge and for the most part appear to rely more on raw brute force and numbers than technological innovation. Tyranids utilize biology rather than technology. Further nothing says the Imperium deals with any of these aliens with innovation of their own as opposed to raw, brute force.

Given that transporters have been jammed by mild amounts of radiation, thunderstorms, and all manner of other mundane phenomenon, trying use them to argue that the targeting sensors are infallible is a strange claim.
I wasn't making any argument in regards to infallibility in the section you quoted. I pointed out that if sensors have the precision/accuracy to beam a person while at warp there's no reason you couldn't use those sensors for targeting. As opposed to you attempting to use the Picard Maneuver as the benchmark of Starfleet targeting.

And the issue is that given we both have a very limited amount of knowledge for 40k naval engagements, arguing that since you don't know of something happening makes it impossible isn't very convincing.
It's a reasonable assumption based on what we know. While we should not misconstrue it for completeness on the subject of course but if both our knowledge of 40k naval engagements contains no reference to it that is a good sign it isn't a common element in their naval battles. Certainly it is no more of an assumption than yours that Starfleet can't detect a ship in the Warp or that Imperium ECM will meaningfully impair starfleet sensors.

Not to mention you've argued that Imperium sensor reach tops out at less than a light second. Even if they could automatically and instantly detect a warp-drive vessel at that range they'd have only some small infinitesimal fraction of a second to react. For a comparison, in the ambush with the Diasporex a cruiser captain considers torpedoes almost thirty seconds out "was practically guaranteed" to hit due such close range.

The point I'm making is that it decisively refutes the claim that Federation uber-sensors can axiomatically detect weak spots in absolutely anything, even alien technology that they're completely unfamiliar with. I'd normally consider such an absurdly broad claim to be a strawman, but it's *actually being argued* in this thread.

Nothing is perfect. However the example tells us little on how good sensors would be in, say, detecting weaknesses in an Imperial void shield or vulnerable point within the ship itself. The Borg cube clearly wasn't opaque to the Enterprise's sensors, Data could see the coordinates and believed there were other, more important systems elsewhere in the ship so presumably those were detected.

Without knowing exactly the weakness Picard was targeting and why it was overlooked by Data we can't say with any certainty what to draw from this.

It actually does factor. For the mainline TV shows, Star Trek ships have multiple weapons arrays but rarely if ever fire multiple arrays simultaneously

Actually I'm pretty sure we see the Galaxy class fire multiple torpedoes in a single go pretty regularly. The 23rd century century Defiant was a little slower but could shoot off four or five torpedoes in a couple of seconds when we saw it in the "In a mirror darkly" two parter.

Further even if we accepted your supposition, that would still only require two ships. Not a "large fleet" as Picard suggested. So whatever weakness Picard meant, which considering modern Trek is almost certainly going to be stupid, it wasn't because you could shoot both ships.
 
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