Security Overhaul

[Mikey]

Right. Why use them just because they're both available and useful?

[Mark]

Because that would entail common sense, which B&B didn't have in any great supply.

[Coalition]

A HUD is certainly workable as long - as Seafort mentions - it is strictly limited to a relatively small amount of vital data. Having had a car with one, I can tell you an HUD is both a tremendous gadget - as well as a HUGE potential liability. Mine was limited to a directional signal indicator, speedo, and radio data, and if it were any more it would have been tremendously distracting. Perhaps the display controls could be linked to a headset comm with voice commands...

What in the world were you wearing?

As to grenades - like I said, even a frag would be acceptable as long as it was limited in blast radius. I don't see metal shrapnel doing a lot of damage to starship structures. What we can't have is security going around tossing those photon grenades that Kirk used in TOS: "Arena."

You could even have it said by one of the engineers, "Don't worry about tossing fragmentation grenades. The minor stuff that will get damaged we can replace easily. The heavy stuff such as power conduits, phaser waveguides, antimatter transfer rigs, and similar are dealing with pressures much higher than a fragmentation grenade produces." Of course, you then get the episode where the Klingon threatened the Ent-D's MAM core with a hand pistol which proves all this wrong ("Heart of Glory").

In Real Life, it'd be like the security detail worrying about punching through the ships's hull with a shotgun, when they are assigned to the Iowa.

[Mikey]

What in the world were you wearing?

If that's a joke, as I hope, not bad. If not, the term is shorthand for "speedometer," and Lord have mercy on you.

In Real Life, it'd be like the security detail worrying about punching through the ships's hull with a shotgun, when they are assigned to the Iowa.

It was a bit ridiculous, but not that much. I have no problem accepting that directed-energy weapons tech was farther ahead of metallurgy in the 24th century than it is now.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

It was a bit ridiculous, but not that much. I have no problem accepting that directed-energy weapons tech was farther ahead of metallurgy in the 24th century than it is now.

Same here. A weapon capable of disintegrating a person and other stuff fired at a M/AM reactor? Deadly combination, there.

[Aaron]

In Real Life, it'd be like the security detail worrying about punching through the ships's hull with a shotgun, when they are assigned to the Iowa.

Just a bit of a nit pick, the rounds used by naval personnel (typically some sort of buckshot) won't penetrate the hull of any serious naval vessel, which is one reason for using them. Warship hulls are quite thick made of high quality steel so it isn't really comparable.

[Lighthawk]

If you want to talk about giving Starfleet a proper army, fair enough. Your own OP, however, specifically talks about shipboard security.

My OP was about the typical security officer, which while normally serving on a starship, is certainly not limited to purely being a hall moniture.

Here's how I see it, SF is never going to make a 'real' army, not without some massive changes to policy first. They have too much of a 'jack-of-a-trades' mentality going. You can see it in their ships, in the way they pass out duty assassignments. They like things to do more than one job.

So the closest thing SF is ever going to have to an army will be their security officers.

Security should be fulfilling two roles: Protecting the ship and crew, and enforcing SF law and their captain's policies.

I don't know what happened between TOS and TNG, but somewhere along the way security seemed to get themselves restricted to the ship itself, excepting the chief, which just boggles the mind. Kirk was constantly bringing security with him, especially in dangerous or unknown situations. Then appearently someone seemed to decide "What if we don't let the captains go down on away missions, but send the XO instead. That way we can leave the securty officers on the ship where they won't get hurt."

Regardless, I think security's place is where ever they need to be, and that they need to be trained and equiped to handle a wide range of duties, ship patrol, brig duty, active protection of personal both on and off the ship, and combat to enforce SF law and desicions made by the captain. If someone has to go down to a planet and use a phaser to get things done, it would make a hell of a lot more sense to send a squad of (properly) trained security officers than the XO, science officer, and chief engineer.

This is true, however your OP ask what I'd do if I were in charge of Starfleet security - in which case the very first step should be separating out security duties from infantry.

Ah now see, I would disagree there (see above). However that is a matter of personel policy, and if you'd rather have the roles seperate, okay then.

However I do have to say, I'd imagine you'd have a lot of political bullshit to have to wade through to get this army formed.

I'm mainly talking about noise here, and in the worse case scenario of something akin to the Iranian Embassy, with shouting, firing and flashbangs, anything that relied on sound would be useless, or at the very best unreliable in the extreme.

True, but again, if they badge can't make out your words to the point that it doesn't understand your commands, then the situation is such that even if it was on it wouldn't be doing you any good.

Being no worse than the existing badge setup is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

True, but it's not like it's a step back either. It's no worse, and it could possibly be better.

How? I think you're seriously overestimating the size of the headset I'm talking about. Not the best image, but I hope it's enough for you to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

I'm sorry, but to me, that just looks like a great target to grab in a grappling contest. Either you'd rip the mic off, or you'd have a secure hold with which to jerk the other guy's head around. Giving your opponent something like that to grab hold of is a bad thing in my opinion. That's why police and military forces have regulations about hair length, to prevent giving people a way of getting a secure hold on the head.

Not if it's secured properly.

In which case, see above.

What evidence do you have that it can be miniaturised further? If they could be, why aren't smaller devices standard issue, with away team personnel being issued the full-sized model?

As to the first, I have no evidence. For the first half of the second though: Because the comm badge is not just a communicator. As it's name suggests, it's also a badge, it's a symbol meant to be worn and seen. It replaced the sewn SF symbol on the old uniforms. Such a thing is meant to be seen, and is smaller than the old sewn symbol, it's still big enough to be clearly seen and recognized. Do we have any evidence as to just how much of the badge the communicator itself takes up? And to the very last: Because they don't need a bigger model most of the time. The thing has orbital range at least. And most of the time when it is jammed, I doubt having a slightly more powerful model would make the difference.

This goes back to the amount of noise a worse-case scenario would produce.

Which again I say, in such a situation, your arguement is irrelavent anyway, since the amount of noise you're taking about would render any communication impossible.

Because the human mind can only process so much data at once - this is why aircraft HUDs are designed to only give a pilot the information he needs, rather than everything possible. Too much data will overload an individual's ability to deal with it, especially when he's trying to do a hundred other things at once (shepherd frightened civilians out of the way, watch out for threats, watch where his buddies are, ears open for what might be round the next corner, etc).

I'm not saying the HUD should be crammed full of data, but at the same time I don't think more than one bit of info floating before your eyes would paralyze you into inaction, especially with proper training.

How about this then, the various types of displays are present at the edges of the individual's vision, but small and mostly transparent, and eye tracking software notes if the person glances in a certain direction, and highlights and expands the display that is present in that 'corner' of their vision. With the right training, learning to ignore or be subconsciously aware of the displays when they are 'off', and knowing which way to look to access a given display.

Because the last thing anyone needs is to be unexpectedly pumped full of drugs in the middle of a firefight. Given identical injuries, one person might be incapacitated, while another is simply pissed off - look at the number of times soldiers have kept going despite having several bullets in them.

Which is why the device is monituring the person's vitals. If he gets hit and keeps going, it might do nothing, it might give him something to help stabilize his injury. If he drops thrashing in pain, it'll give him a kick of painkillers. Trek medical sensors, even on something as small as a tricorder, are pretty damn detailed. Pair it up with the right software, and I see no reason these things couldn't be a big help. However, like the armor, since different people have different feelings about these things, they would be optional.

[Lighthawk]

But for ship board use, you need to be able to control the weapon better. What happens if you lob a grenade and it some shrapnel damages an EPS grid? Not just blowing a hole in the hull, but screwing up key systems that are behind the deck walls and in the flooring/ceiling.

What happens if your phaser burst blows a hole in a wall and hits a power conduit? Any time you start shooting off weapons on a ship, there is a potential for serious harm to happen.

There are grenades other then frag, a simple tear gas grenade would have solved many of the intruder incidents.

Asuming the gas would have had the desired effect, given different alien biologies. Explosives tend to be pretty universal in their effects.

Again... this is about using them aboard ship, and if they have force fields it won't make a difference if it's frag or flash.

So all forcefields are immune to all frag grenades?

They had either implanted or hidden comms in the episode with the proto-vulcans, Troi could hear Data clearly but had to disguise her answers.

So they did, thank you, I was trying to think of some example of such a device.

As to grenades - like I said, even a frag would be acceptable as long as it was limited in blast radius. I don't see metal shrapnel doing a lot of damage to starship structures. What we can't have is security going around tossing those photon grenades that Kirk used in TOS: "Arena."

We can't have them doing so on the ship, most of the time*. Off the ship though...

*While I wouldn't consider letting such devices be used in any standard situation on ship, we've seen Trek use a lot of equipment in ways they should never be used, usually in a hastily rigged configuration.

[Aaron]

So all forcefields are immune to all frag grenades?

A frag grenade isn't exactly a powerful device, they don't demolish buildings like they do in Hollywood. I would question whether the fields emitters are protected in any way though, a frag grenade may or may not shred them.

[Coalition]

What in the world were you wearing?

If that's a joke, as I hope, not bad. If not, the term is shorthand for "speedometer," and Lord have mercy on you.

Didn't know that actually. Thanks.

In Real Life, it'd be like the security detail worrying about punching through the ships's hull with a shotgun, when they are assigned to the Iowa.

It was a bit ridiculous, but not that much. I have no problem accepting that directed-energy weapons tech was farther ahead of metallurgy in the 24th century than it is now.

The fun part is that a Romulan pistol doesn't have enough energy in it to affect people 30-40 feet away ("The Next Phase"). The disruptor pistol was phased in that episode, so it doesn't matter if you get behind an obstruction, the blast will still go straight through.

"The Mind's Eye" establishes an upper limit for Federation rifle phasers (and given the efficiency involved, actual power is going to be much lower to avoid cooking the user).

DS9's "The Forsaken" shows a door material that is effectively immune to phasers (they had to call for a special torch, and looking at the opposite side afterwards showed no noticeable cutting effect).

Of course, you also have "Conundrums", where they say a 4.3 kJ shield is used for protecting a space station from starship-grade weapons. To give a comparison, 1 kg of TNT is equal to 4.2 MJ. The station's shields could have been brought down by a little over 1 gram of chemical explosive. Hopefully, they meant Megatons instead of kiloJoules (which would make the shield about 4 trillion times stronger).