Main defector dish

[JasonB]

Does anyone here by any chance know how strong weapon the main defector dish on a Galaxy class starship is.

[Darth Tedious]

Are you referring to when it was being weaponised in Best of Both Worlds? If so, you could probably get a lower limit based on the phaser arrays and torpedo banks...

[JasonB]

I am referring to time USS Enterprise D used as weapon during Star Trek Best of both Worlds. I know equal 50 phaser bank fire at once problem with using that method find powerful is that phaser run under the NDF theory. Only way I know that is since power dropped Borg Cube 2% ship wide when USS Enterprise D phaser bank hit it. Problem with that is the main defector dish when used as weapon does not act as phaser beam.

[Rommel123]

Well, it is definetly way more powerful than phasers; we hear that deflector dish is only energy emitter on ship capable of emitting "that much energy". How much is it, we don't know; but it is certainly way more than from both forward arrays on ship combined. Now, we could, theoretically, get upper limit by getting warp core power production, but that is not final answer, since other factors might further limit amount of energy it is possible to direct throught deflector.

[seanrobertson]

Not all that long ago, someone started a thread about Borg wankers on another site.

I suggested the OP in that thread cite "Best of Both Worlds," specifically LaForge's idea that the deflector weapon would provide "more power than [the E-D's] phasers and photon torpedoes could ever provide." I further suggested he take Geordi's line to mean the beam's output was greater than the Enterprise's entire photon torpedo inventory, but not much more. Otherwise, the comparison becomes meaningless: if the beam's effectiveness is, say, hundreds or more times greater than conventional weapons, why not say so?

To be especially generous, I told him to run with the TNG TM figures for torpedo yield and inventory (~64.5 megatons/torpedo times an inventory of 275). That'd be an almost 18 gigaton blast if we totally overlooked the amount of energy each of those torpedoes would lose to empty space, which is probably ~60%. (Based on onscreen evidence, we'd more than likely be looking at 2-3 megatons per torpedo max times a 250 complement ("Conundrum"). But more on that in a minute.)

The Borg took preparations such that they could shrug the blast off, but without assimilating Picard's knowledge, there was a very good chance the weapon would have at least inflicted heavy damage to the cube. But rather than quibble over the Collective's anal adaptation-based defenses, I directed that fellow to point to heavy turbolaser output which, per the Episode 2 Incredible Cross-Sections, yield no less than 50 gigatons per maximum shot (or potentially 200 -- and perhaps more for the ISD's even bigger cannons -- but as I said, the idea's to be generous and give the fuckers no wiggle room).

If the Borg fans objected to the ICS numbers, I recommended he point to the fact that the Trek tech manual's figures were already an order of magnitude beyond anything we see, to say nothing of how the Borg guys are hypocrites for embracing one outside source while eschewing another.

Long story made short, no matter how generous we are with that interpretation, an Acclamator's big guns should make short work of a cube. One shot would likely suffice (again, running with the generous numbers and assumptions noted); and if not, a full broadside would assuredly smoke that sucker.

In reality, I figure Geordi's statement, which mentioned power -- you know, energy per unit time -- meant something more along the lines of what the Enterprise could muster in a given moment. That might translate to a full torpedo spread and maximum phaser volley.

Even that's problematic for several reasons. For example, how would we even begin to account for a full-powered phaser attack? We can draw very loose comparisons to their effectiveness opposite torpedoes, but that's not very reliable. All we can really say is their big ventral array's probably good for 6 terawatts* -- too little to even bother with IMO.

(*A 60 GW variance was a very big deal in "A Matter of Time," yet "The Ultimate Computer" establishes that starship phasers can be dialed down to as little as one percent. 60*100 = 6,000 GW.)

As it stands, about all we can do is guess the beam's more powerful than the E-D's biggest torpedo spread. I recall five torps in "Arsenal of Freedom" and "Yesterday's Enterprise." She might've outdone that in "Survivors," but I can't remember.

Call it five 2 megaton torpedoes, then. Treating them as directed charges rather than standard omnidirectional explosives, you could say the deflector beam exceeded but 42,000 TJ. Is that per-second or for the whole duration of the actual discharge?

Either way, it's interesting to note that guess is on the same order of magnitude as Michael's "Deja-Q"-based 30,000 TW estimate, which also involved pushing the warp core to its max or close thereto IIRC.

Thus, if someone said, "That deflector wad-shooter beam was probably in the 1E16W range," I wouldn't bat an eye. It's too bad we can't come up with something more refined, but even if Geordi was much less ambiguous, this kind of work's still limited. For example, had Geordi said, "This beam will carry the energy of a hundred photon torpedoes," photorp yield remains arguable. Short of an explicit statement, like "It'll hit that cube with 58,521 point seven nine terawatts,"
we must necessarily deal in ranges. (Unfortunately, as bad as Trek writers often were with S.I. units, even then we'd have to compare that kind of quote to other things we see. Recall "The Dauphin." As dumb as a sub-terawatt M/AM reactor for a multi-million ton starship sounds, the script originally called for a gigawatt. Yep, <1 GW -- as in the E-D couldn't generate that which many modern large nuclear reactors can easily manage.)

[Batman]

Wow. And I thought the phaser firepower figures from the TNG TM were ludicrously low.
And wherever it comes from, I like the 1E16W figure, as it works with what we've seen for both Trek firepower and power generation.
1E16W for the duration we see in BoBW works out to a double figure kilogram reactant use. That's perfectly acceptable to me as it's well within the fuel capacity of a ship the size and mass of the E-D while still being still considerably beyond her conventional firepower (roughly 3MT/s vs 5 maybe-MT torpedoes per salvo, with the refire rate being nothing to write home about).

[Rommel123]

Actually, TNG TM figures are middle-value. Way higher than low-end values but way lower than high-end values, which gives quite a range, from low kilotons to high megatons/low gigatons, depending which evidence one decides to use (and that is disregarding some insanely high-end showings inferred about once per series, that can safely be disregarded).

Regarding gigaton-range torpedoes, there is quote from one episode, where Data says "12.75 billion gigawatts per..." for power production of Enterprise (which was at time moving at impulse); I think that best explanation is "12.75 billion gigawatts per pulse", giving total power production of 4.25 billion gigawatts. But as I said, there are loads of evidence in Trek for virtually anything that supports one's position.

[Batman]

Where, pray tell, do phaser firepower figures go below the 1.05GW number from the TNG TM? Even 1KT/s would be four thousand times that.

[Rommel123]

I was talking about torpedoes and some other things (warp speeds, etc.), not shipboard phasers.

[Uraniun235]

As it stands, about all we can do is guess the beam's more powerful than the E-D's biggest torpedo spread. I recall five torps in "Arsenal of Freedom" and "Yesterday's Enterprise." She might've outdone that in "Survivors," but I can't remember.

Just for future reference, the two torpedo volleys in Survivors were comprised of six torpedoes each, although they were fired sequentially. The biggest spread where a tight simultaneous cluster of torpedoes breaks off into different directions was five in the episodes you mentioned.