Evidence of massive torpedo yield?

[Darth Servo]

Why is it that Trekkies insist that standard Fed ship weapons must be more powerful than the most powerful nuke ever detonated in history, even though our current standard ship based weapons (four decades after the Tsar bomba) aren't anywhere near that powerful?

I said several times there were low-kiloton and even less than 1 kiloton torpedo explosions, not that every torpedo is more massive than anything ever concieved.

Bull. You tried to argue,
"During the Cold War the Soviets built and detonated a 90 megaton nuke. It seems unlikely that, even given Starfleet's apparent disreguard to efficient advancement, they wouldn't be much better off 400 years later."
You tried to argue that the Tsar Bomba should be used as a bench mark for what Fed shold be able to accomplish, IOW, a LOW END FIGURE, even though even 40 years after the fact, we do NOT have big nukes like that in our arsenals and such a large device would never be practicle as a ship to ship weapon given Fed Torpedo size. IIRC, the weapon that the Tsar Bomba was a prototype for would fave filled an entire ship.

The 100 megaton bomb was designed and built, but never fired. Instead, the Soviet union decided to develop 50 megaton versions. It's not surprising. The 100 megaton bomb would have been useless militarily.

As would the 50 MT bombs. The one 50 MT bomb detonated was a PROTOTYPE. The Soviets NEVER produced large numbers of the thing.

One time frame was, IIRC, 45 minutes.

Which one? And prove it wasn't a bluff.

TDiC had a timeframe (despite all the attempts to claim that the figure in TDiC were "lies", and not only that, pretty meaningless lies, I will continue to believe that a fleet that size is capable of that level of destruction in said time limits.)

Its pretty obvious that the information for TDIC was fed to the Roms and Cardies by the Dominion. The entire operatioin was a TRAP. Did you miss that part of the episode? The Dominion was WAITING for the Roms and Cardies to attack. They had even gone so far as to evacuate the entire planet and plant a machine to send false sensor readings. ALL these were spelled out in the episode. Visuals ALWAYS take prescedence over dialogue for the simple reason that people can be wrong. Cling to dialogue over visuals all you like. It will only lead to you being taken less and less seriously by the rest of the vs community.

Warsies worship the calculations of the Hoth asteroids to determin HTL power despite the evidence that points to the contrary throughout the films.

What evidence?

Yet, planetary-wide destruction is mentioned many times as quite capable by ST ships from TOS to Voyager and they're all written off as "lies", "bluffs", etc, SOME excuse as to why it's not possible.

A boast about a given ability is totally worthless in the real world. People can exaggerate. People can lie. People can be wrong. Anytime you try and argue for a given ability usuing nothing but "so-and-so said so" you are committing a textbook Appeal to authority fallacy.

Even "The visual effects of those explosions do not support those yield figures", even though I never saw a HTL make a 300 gigaton explosion.

Except for the fact that (with one or two exceptions at the battle of Endor) we never SAW a HTL fired. The blasts we see in the films are LIGHT turbo lasers. Do you know the difference between heavy and light weapons? You don't use heavy weapons when you are trying to capture a ship intact (Leia's Corvette in ANH, the Falcon in TESB).

I really don't see any point in trying to argue the fact since it's pretty much a given that most peoples' perceptions are severely one-sided.

And you're aren't?

It's like walking into a church and trying to convince everyone that God doesn't exist.

Thats what debating with Trekkies is like, yes.

[Darth Servo]

With all due respect, I go by the dialogue.

[Yoda]That is why you fail.[/Yoda]

The fleet came, started doing whatever they did, said the crust would take 1 hour and the mantle 5, quite frankly that could mean the entire crust and the entire mantle, or it could mean simply a portion of it.

EXACTLY And THIS is why dialogue is WORTHLESS as a form of evidence. If something can be interpreted in multiple ways, you have NO BUSINESS claiming YOUR interpretation is the only valid one. There is zero reason to lean towards YOUR interpretation rather than ours and plenty of reason (lots of small yeild examples) why OUR interpretation is more valid.

There have been other technologies which were seen doing a lot of damage without the massively huge fireball. Most examples I can think of come from SW unfortunately which I'm trying not to bring up. The point of the matter wasnt to say that the shockwaves were the evidence of massive power, SIMPLY that not all heavily-damaging weapons need to create a giant fireball in terms of 24th century technology.

And you COMPLETELY IGNORE the many rebuttals about the SW examples being in VACUUM while TDIC was in ATMOSPHERE. You do realize there is a difference between what a large explosion would look like in those two different environments, don't you?

It probably didn't mean the entire crust. Unless somehow their weapons shot all the way around the planet to hit the other side. It probably refers to 30% of the crust around the area they were bombarding.

And since you have no idea HOW BIG that area was, it proves NOTHING about the yield of the weapons. It could be as small as a square mile for all we know. Furthermore, it is a FACT that there WAS a machine on the surface sending back FALSE SENSOR READINGS. Therefore, any and all sensor reasings are NOT 100% trustworthy.

Yes, I agree. From both sides. From what I can tell the most popular anti-Trek arguement is that "The footage doesn't match the dialogue, so they must be mistaken/lying/stupid/wrong in some way."

Except that PRECISELY how we analyze things in the real world. Why should we treat sci-fi any differently? The scientific method works. Overanalysis of dialogue doesn't.

Which doesn't really add up. Nobody seemed surprised about the crust being destroyed in 1 hour and the mantle in 5.

Aren't Roms and Cardies trained to NOT question their superiors?

If it's impossible for ST ships to do that, you would think they would say something like "holy shit! What is that, made out of jello?!", but they didn't.

Thats the way things are like in the real military. You get an order, you obey it. The CO has the authority to make that decision because he/she probably knows things you don't.

But they are capable of planet-wide destruction, a la Garek's comments of turning the Homeworld into burning cinder,

Which was merely Garek whining that he wished they would do it and we have no evidence that he was speaking literally.

the TOS mentionings of ridding a planet of life,

Verbal hyperbolie.

TDiC

Circular logic. When the issue under discussion is "did TDIC really do as much damage as was claimded" you can't just say "TDIC did that much damage to support itself.

Given that there wasn't extensive evident damage to the planet, I think their "destroying the crust and mantle" claim probably meant shattering it to the point of causing heavy tactonic destruction. In any case, you can't do that with a few 60 megaton photon torpedoes.

You can if you fire enough of them and they explode underground.

And I'm not even going to reply to GAT. He flings around the word "liar" like it was the 4th of july (even though it is....)

GAT is one of the most respected people on this board. Don't direct ad hominem attacks at him unless you want serious trouble.

[seanrobertson]

Bull. You tried to argue,
"During the Cold War the Soviets built and detonated a 90 megaton nuke. It seems unlikely that, even given Starfleet's apparent disreguard to efficient advancement, they wouldn't be much better off 400 years later."
You tried to argue that the Tsar Bomba should be used as a bench mark for what Fed shold be able to accomplish, IOW, a LOW END FIGURE, even though even 40 years after the fact, we do NOT have big nukes like that in our arsenals and such a large device would never be practicle as a ship to ship weapon given Fed Torpedo size. IIRC, the weapon that the Tsar Bomba was a prototype for would fave filled an entire ship.

Well said, Darth Servo.

All you Darths make me wish "Darth Sean" sounded formidable, LOL

This is Tsar Bomba:

http://nuketesting.enviroweb.org/hew/Russia/Tsarbmb.jpg

Note the size of the thing next to the two men. One of those guys would BARELY fit into a photon torpedo (ref: "Emissary," when a photorp was a tight fit for Worf's squeeze). But it appears as if you could fit about 20-30 guys inside the Tsar.

It's simply a goofy benchmark for photorp performance. I've already listed all the reasons why you can't just cram lots of antimatter into a photorp casing.

Which one? And prove it wasn't a bluff.

45 minutes was never mentioned as part of the bombardment timeframe.

Its pretty obvious that the information for TDIC was fed to the Roms and Cardies by the Dominion. The entire operatioin was a TRAP. Did you miss that part of the episode? The Dominion was WAITING for the Roms and Cardies to attack. They had even gone so far as to evacuate the entire planet and plant a machine to send false sensor readings. ALL these were spelled out in the episode. Visuals ALWAYS take prescedence over dialogue for the simple reason that people can be wrong. Cling to dialogue over visuals all you like. It will only lead to you being taken less and less seriously by the rest of the vs community.

By the heavy-hitters of vs. community, yes

In fairness, I think the timeframe for the bombardment was probably not b.s. The Tal'Shiar and Obsidian Order would know what their weapons were capable of doing; any obvious deception in that figure would send red flags up for someone as cagey as Enabran Tain.

But that changes nothing in the reality of the situation. The observed effects weren't teratons/sec. It wasn't DET we were seeing.

A boast about a given ability is totally worthless in the real world. People can exaggerate. People can lie. People can be wrong. Anytime you try and argue for a given ability usuing nothing but "so-and-so said so" you are committing a textbook Appeal to authority fallacy.

Yes.

In the event of a contradiction (which we don't actually have in "TDIC," since Tain never said they'd "bombard the Founders only through direct-energy transfer weaponry, mwahahahaha"), visuals win.

This is invariably a problem in dealing with Star Trek fans.

Except for the fact that (with one or two exceptions at the battle of Endor) we never SAW a HTL fired. The blasts we see in the films are LIGHT turbo lasers. Do you know the difference between heavy and light weapons? You don't use heavy weapons when you are trying to capture a ship intact (Leia's Corvette in ANH, the Falcon in TESB).

Definitely.

That's not to mention that Piett had orders to only keep the Rebels from escaping; the Emperor wanted to take them out with the DS. The Impstar fleet was--dare I say!--"holding back" early on in the fight. This even struck the Rebels as remarkable: "I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for?"

We've never seen the Imperials press an attack with everything they had. Anyone who says "200 gigaton turbolasers are contradicted by the films" is full of shit.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

In fairness, I think the timeframe for the bombardment was probably not b.s. The Tal'Shiar and Obsidian Order would know what their weapons were capable of doing; any obvious deception in that figure would send red flags up for someone as cagey as Enabran Tain.

But some High Commands are known to bury their heads in the sand

Once an unknown Soviet staff general (he did develop the famous Correlation of Forces concept) in the 70s scratched out a report that seems to basically say "a few exploded nukes on the European battlefield would be highly paralytic." A deputy minister of told him to rewrite it. He wound up having to keep rewriting it (almost certainly inserting more and more false assumptions into it) until he arrives as a ONE HUNDRED KILOMETER PER DAY Soviet advance rate.

More famous example. During one of the exercises before Midway, the Japanese simmed a US air attack on their carriers. Playing it like an dice rolling RPG or paper wargame (apparently) the ref rolled dice and decided two carriers would be marked sunk.

Fair enough, especially considering what would eventually happen. Guess what. Ugaki "jammed" the wargame, arbitrarily deciding only one (Kaga) would be marked sunk. He then quietly refloated Kaga for participation in a post-Midway operation!

If only Ugaki really had the power to refloat carriers

The point I guess, is that people see what they want to see. I can just see the staff telling Tain and anybody up there it won't work, but are merely told to recompute it. So they would fiddle with the assumed blast radiuses and the assumed NDF amplification factor until a better number shows

Then they'd go pretending this number is real.

[seanrobertson]

But some High Commands are known to bury their heads in the sand

Heh, very true, that

Once an unknown Soviet staff general (he did develop the famous Correlation of Forces concept) in the 70s scratched out a report that seems to basically say "a few exploded nukes on the European battlefield would be highly paralytic." A deputy minister of told him to rewrite it. He wound up having to keep rewriting it (almost certainly inserting more and more false assumptions into it) until he arrives as a ONE HUNDRED KILOMETER PER DAY Soviet advance rate.

Damn.

I remember Correlation of Forces, but had never heard of that.

More famous example. During one of the exercises before Midway, the Japanese simmed a US air attack on their carriers. Playing it like an dice rolling RPG or paper wargame (apparently) the ref rolled dice and decided two carriers would be marked sunk.

Fair enough, especially considering what would eventually happen. Guess what. Ugaki "jammed" the wargame, arbitrarily deciding only one (Kaga) would be marked sunk. He then quietly refloated Kaga for participation in a post-Midway operation!

If only Ugaki really had the power to refloat carriers

The point I guess, is that people see what they want to see. I can just see the staff telling Tain and anybody up there it won't work, but are merely told to recompute it. So they would fiddle with the assumed blast radiuses and the assumed NDF amplification factor until a better number shows

Then they'd go pretending this number is real.

I'm with you.

Starfleet said Tain's plan had a "reasonable chance of success," hence SFC's orders for Sisko to lay low during the affair.

However, "success" doesn't directly correlate to 1 hr., crust, 4-5 hrs. mantle does it?

My guess is that Tal'Shiar computers were responsible for the estimate, since "Lovok" did deliver that line. I'd also think that, if the estimate was part of the whole ruse, the timeframe would actually be played down.

Tain was certainly an egotist, but he was also paranoid and somewhat of a pragmatist (hence the plan to attack itself). He was also not stupid; other than Lovok The Changeling him/itself, he was pretty careful to make sure the operation was pulled off without a hitch, even travelling at low warp speeds to be sure the Jem'Hadar patrols didn't detect them.

As such, I'm compelled to believe that estimate is roughly on the mark, but then, it's still not very useful to us. I mean, "destroy the crust"? What the hell does THAT entail?

It's pretty much worthless, and could be an overly-conservative estimate for a number of reasons (yours being my favorite...historical precedents always kick ass ), anyway.

That shit might've flown five years ago, but Trekkies are doomed to use it in this day and age.

[Master of Ossus]

Note the size of the thing next to the two men. One of those guys would BARELY fit into a photon torpedo (ref: "Emissary," when a photorp was a tight fit for Worf's squeeze). But it appears as if you could fit about 20-30 guys inside the Tsar.

Also remember that torpedoes have to be relatively fast and maneuverable. The Tsar Bomba was neither, by any stretch of the imagination. Torpedoes also have to be self guided and have the capability of being modified to carry other payloads.

It should also be pointed out that, from a SF perspective, carrying antimatter as opposed to uranium/plutonium/similar, is VASTLY better, because AM is also used as fuel for their starships. Coupled with both the need for starship fuel, and the ability to appear peaceful, anything based on an AM payload will have a huge advantage over modern nuclear weapons when it comes down to making decisions on payloads.

It's simply a goofy benchmark for photorp performance. I've already listed all the reasons why you can't just cram lots of antimatter into a photorp casing.

I agree completely. The two are completely dissimilar technologies, designed to different specifications.

Which one? And prove it wasn't a bluff.

45 minutes was never mentioned as part of the bombardment timeframe.

Its pretty obvious that the information for TDIC was fed to the Roms and Cardies by the Dominion. The entire operatioin was a TRAP. Did you miss that part of the episode? The Dominion was WAITING for the Roms and Cardies to attack. They had even gone so far as to evacuate the entire planet and plant a machine to send false sensor readings. ALL these were spelled out in the episode. Visuals ALWAYS take prescedence over dialogue for the simple reason that people can be wrong. Cling to dialogue over visuals all you like. It will only lead to you being taken less and less seriously by the rest of the vs community.

By the heavy-hitters of vs. community, yes

In fairness, I think the timeframe for the bombardment was probably not b.s.

That's pretty weak evidence, though, when the best you can say about it is that it's "probably not b.s." Simply put, neither dialogue matched the other, and neither matched the visuals. At least two of those pieces of information were wrong.

The Tal'Shiar and Obsidian Order would know what their weapons were capable of doing; any obvious deception in that figure would send red flags up for someone as cagey as Enabran Tain.

But that changes nothing in the reality of the situation. The observed effects weren't teratons/sec. It wasn't DET we were seeing.

I agree, but I don't think that the dialogue can be believed without completely discounting the visuals, and vice-versa. The information regarding the attack was completely contradictory, and there's really no method of determining which is the most reliable information.

A boast about a given ability is totally worthless in the real world. People can exaggerate. People can lie. People can be wrong. Anytime you try and argue for a given ability usuing nothing but "so-and-so said so" you are committing a textbook Appeal to authority fallacy.

Yes.

In the event of a contradiction (which we don't actually have in "TDIC," since Tain never said they'd "bombard the Founders only through direct-energy transfer weaponry, mwahahahaha"), visuals win.

But I think there is a contradiction. The dialogue stated that the opening salvos destroyed 30% of the surface. Another piece of dialogue said that the attack would take 1 hour to destroy the crust. The visuals showed neither. Even if we discount the visuals and chalk it up to the JH jamming, the other statements contradict each other.

This is invariably a problem in dealing with Star Trek fans.

I agree. Both pieces of dialogue are contradictory, and then you have someone who's trying to use BOTH as evidence ALONG WITH a visual that is also contradictory.

Except for the fact that (with one or two exceptions at the battle of Endor) we never SAW a HTL fired. The blasts we see in the films are LIGHT turbo lasers. Do you know the difference between heavy and light weapons? You don't use heavy weapons when you are trying to capture a ship intact (Leia's Corvette in ANH, the Falcon in TESB).

Definitely.

That's not to mention that Piett had orders to only keep the Rebels from escaping; the Emperor wanted to take them out with the DS. The Impstar fleet was--dare I say!--"holding back" early on in the fight. This even struck the Rebels as remarkable: "I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for?"

We've never seen the Imperials press an attack with everything they had. Anyone who says "200 gigaton turbolasers are contradicted by the films" is full of shit.

Right. I have no idea what Vexx was talking about, though I would sincerely like to know.

[SPOOFE]

I can just see the staff telling Tain and anybody up there it won't work, but are merely told to recompute it. So they would fiddle with the assumed blast radiuses and the assumed NDF amplification factor until a better number shows

This goes along quite well, actually, with a theory of mine that Star Trek technology is inherently unstable, prone to wide fluctuations in power usage, efficiency, and generation. There are numerous examples throughout TNG+ where the crew themselves have NO IDEA exactly what their weapons are going to do, or their shields, or whatever. This would also explain discrepancies between various phenomena.

[TurboPhaser]

Provide examples of this 'they have no idea what their shields will do etc' please.

[seanrobertson]

Also remember that torpedoes have to be relatively fast and maneuverable. The Tsar Bomba was neither, by any stretch of the imagination. Torpedoes also have to be self guided and have the capability of being modified to carry other payloads.

Yep. They also have other equipment, like the "warp sustainer" thingie, a mass-lightening device of some sort, a small engine, and a tiny shield generator.

I don't think TB had all of that, either

It should also be pointed out that, from a SF perspective, carrying antimatter as opposed to uranium/plutonium/similar, is VASTLY better, because AM is also used as fuel for their starships. Coupled with both the need for starship fuel, and the ability to appear peaceful, anything based on an AM payload will have a huge advantage over modern nuclear weapons when it comes down to making decisions on payloads.

That's a very good thought.

I particularly like the "appearance of being peaceful" idea. That's perfectly in line with Starfleet's contradictory "we're not a military, yet we kinda are" rhetoric that we heard so much in TNG.

Indeed, Data described the missile that was to launch Cochrane's ship as a former "WOMD," and we've heard a lot of disparaging talk about atomic weapons throughout Trek. They apparently carry a stigma, if only from WWIII, and would probably never see use on a 24th century starship even if they were practical for some purpose.

TNG and onward's Starfleet is simply too goody-goody to carry such things, or to use weapons that actually look like guns for that matter (at least, until recently). They're playing b.s. semantics games in that respect--phasers are STILL weapons, and so are photorps intended to be, regardless of how they're loaded--but we know it's keeping with their high-horse approach.

That's pretty weak evidence, though, when the best you can say about it is that it's "probably not b.s." Simply put, neither dialogue matched the other, and neither matched the visuals. At least two of those pieces of information were wrong.

Ah...see, I'd ignored the whole 30% figure altogether. I've done that for so long that I've taken it for granted! I reckoned that such should purely be chalked up to sensor interference.

I also thought that the computer estimate could be in keeping with the visuals since we don't know just what "Lovok" meant by "destroy." Even though precious little DET was involved, the NDF effects of that attack could have done significant damage to the planet's surface--enough that, in six hours, "damage" of some kind would've been inflicted to the crust and upper mantle, however limited.

But you are right. It's far from evidence It's nothing of the sort, obvious by the way I said "the computer estimate could be..."

I just wanted to try to salvage what little dialogue I could; I'm generally a bit quick to get caught up in that old rationalization game. Back in the days of the early vs. community, that kind of thing was going on literally all the time, and it left its mark on me

I agree, but I don't think that the dialogue can be believed without completely discounting the visuals, and vice-versa. The information regarding the attack was completely contradictory, and there's really no method of determining which is the most reliable information.

Well, it needn't necessarily be contradictory if we attribute the 30%/initial volley figure to false sensor readings. I think the computer's estimate is definitely more reliable than that.

However, the timetable and the observed effects are potentially at odds given this whole "destroy the crust" shit, whatever that would require. I'd simply dismiss "destruction" as something very mundane and try to keep said computer analysis, but then, the same analysis mentioned mantle (however limited a portion thereof was likely to be targetted).

But I think there is a contradiction. The dialogue stated that the opening salvos destroyed 30% of the surface. Another piece of dialogue said that the attack would take 1 hour to destroy the crust. The visuals showed neither. Even if we discount the visuals and chalk it up to the JH jamming, the other statements contradict each other.

The only grievance I'd have with this is that the jamming should be grounds for discarding the latter of the two statements. The visuals oughta stand in the event of jamming.

But like you said, this winds up as a mish-mash of bullshit and speculation--certainly all well short of what we'd call evidence.

Much as I would like to, it doesn't really matter if we could rationalize Lovok's quote to fit what we see (i.e., defining the actual level of destruction he had to've been thinking of), or any of that other junk.

As I said, I do that pretty much out of habit , and it's bad because a newbie could jump to conclusions therefrom.

So for their benefit, I'll say: GO FOR THE VISUALS.

And by God, if anyone else says those visuals support great firepower: READ THE FUCKING THREAD FIRST!

Every WORD!

[seanrobertson]

I can just see the staff telling Tain and anybody up there it won't work, but are merely told to recompute it. So they would fiddle with the assumed blast radiuses and the assumed NDF amplification factor until a better number shows

This goes along quite well, actually, with a theory of mine that Star Trek technology is inherently unstable, prone to wide fluctuations in power usage, efficiency, and generation. There are numerous examples throughout TNG+ where the crew themselves have NO IDEA exactly what their weapons are going to do, or their shields, or whatever. This would also explain discrepancies between various phenomena.

That's an interesting idea. More, more!

I don't know if all said technologies are necessarily unstable, but you're DEFINITELY right in that the people DON'T know what the fuck is going on with much of their technology: transporter screw-ups, holodeck malfunctions, [enhanced] Barclay's ability to easily boost shield power by 300% to the amazement of LaForge, Worf's new torpedoes in "Genesis" going haywire...the list is endless.

As Darth Mike has said many times, it's almost as if starship crews are monkeys trying to drive a car. (Well, he said something to that effect.) The monkeys might grasp turning the steering wheel and all that, but they really have ZERO clue how the car actually works, how to improve its performance and so on.

My version is a bit harsh, but it's not THAT unfair.

[Master of Ossus]

Regarding the "Appearance of Peace" phenomena we observe in SF beginning with TNG, I'm starting another thread in case anyone's interested.

[SPOOFE]

Provide examples of this 'they have no idea what their shields will do etc' please.

Certainly, with special thanks to Mr. Wong and his TNG Database.

1. Encounter at Farpoint: "Projection, sir. We may be able to match the hostile's nine point eight, sir. But at extreme risk." - Data (bolding mine)
- Shows that they don't quite know the limits of their engines, and have to GUESS what their maximum speed is.

2. The Battle: "I was in Engineering, playing around with boosting sensor output ..." - Wesley (shudder)
- He was "playing" with the sensors. "Playing". And he managed to boost sensor output beyond their usual maximum capability.

3. Datalore: "Sir... you asked for the kind of computer upgrade that only the Bynars can handle." - Wesley again
- Why on Earth can only the Bynars - whoever the fuck they are - handle a computer upgrade on the Enterprise? Is that the 24th century equivalent of Apple? This indicates that Federation engineers do NOT have a complete understanding of their OWN computer systems.

4. Elementary, Dear Data: Several examples in this, one of the Classic Holodeck Glitch episodes. Things such as being unable to kill a process in the holodeck's computer, the uselessness of so-called "failsafes", Geordi's lower command access overriding the captain's... their computer systems are worse than Windows ME.

And that only goes into Season 2 (hey, I'm lazy and got tired of scanning the database). I didn't even mention the instance where they attempt to shift the path of a moon, and they can't accurately predict if their ship will be able to do it... despite the fact that the calculations necessary to do so are available to us today! Or the infamous episode where they need to set off a huge energy burst to get out of some sort of vortex (they use the sensor dish beam, and it fails)... and they cannot predict just how much energy they'll be able to put into the operation.

Let's face it, either the Federation is composed of utter morons (well... that's a different thread), or their technology is viciously unstable and unpredictable.

[Patrick Degan]

3. Datalore: "Sir... you asked for the kind of computer upgrade that only the Bynars can handle." - Wesley again
- Why on Earth can only the Bynars - whoever the fuck they are - handle a computer upgrade on the Enterprise? Is that the 24th century equivalent of Apple? This indicates that Federation engineers do NOT have a complete understanding of their OWN computer systems.

Actually, they're the 24th century analogue of Microsoft tech support. The OS for the Enterprise computer evidently must be Windows: The Next Generation.

[SPOOFE]

So, Starfleet really isn't any smarter than your average computer user of today? The explains a lot...

[TurboPhaser]

Provide examples of this 'they have no idea what their shields will do etc' please.

Certainly, with special thanks to Mr. Wong and his TNG Database.

1. Encounter at Farpoint: "Projection, sir. We may be able to match the hostile's nine point eight, sir. But at extreme risk." - Data (bolding mine)
- Shows that they don't quite know the limits of their engines, and have to GUESS what their maximum speed is.

2. The Battle: "I was in Engineering, playing around with boosting sensor output ..." - Wesley (shudder)
- He was "playing" with the sensors. "Playing". And he managed to boost sensor output beyond their usual maximum capability.

3. Datalore: "Sir... you asked for the kind of computer upgrade that only the Bynars can handle." - Wesley again
- Why on Earth can only the Bynars - whoever the fuck they are - handle a computer upgrade on the Enterprise? Is that the 24th century equivalent of Apple? This indicates that Federation engineers do NOT have a complete understanding of their OWN computer systems.

4. Elementary, Dear Data: Several examples in this, one of the Classic Holodeck Glitch episodes. Things such as being unable to kill a process in the holodeck's computer, the uselessness of so-called "failsafes", Geordi's lower command access overriding the captain's... their computer systems are worse than Windows ME.

And that only goes into Season 2 (hey, I'm lazy and got tired of scanning the database). I didn't even mention the instance where they attempt to shift the path of a moon, and they can't accurately predict if their ship will be able to do it... despite the fact that the calculations necessary to do so are available to us today! Or the infamous episode where they need to set off a huge energy burst to get out of some sort of vortex (they use the sensor dish beam, and it fails)... and they cannot predict just how much energy they'll be able to put into the operation.

Let's face it, either the Federation is composed of utter morons (well... that's a different thread), or their technology is viciously unstable and unpredictable.

1. Lets be fair, it was a new ship then, not everyone would know what its capabilities would be instantly. But, that does not exscuse the walking encyclopedia that is Data.

And if you are in your car hurtling down the highway chasing somebody, and they get to 200 km/h, your car might be able to match that speed also, but you would not be sure it wont conk out, therfore, that would be extreme risk.

2. Wesley is a little meddling geek. If i was in Engineering I woulda had him thrown out. Or thrown into the Warp Core.

Anyway, he said he was 'playing around to boost sensor output'. That doesnt mean he was sucessfull.

3. They are computer experts, they might know things about computers that simply dont occur to other people. They practically are computers the Bynars. SF does know how to use its computers, But to get something special out of them, specialists are needed.

4. They did have a solution at hand, but ity would have injured the occupants I believe.

[SPOOFE]

1. Lets be fair, it was a new ship then, not everyone would know what its capabilities would be instantly.

I imagine that they would have put the ship through some vigorous testing before putting it into service.

Anyway, he said he was 'playing around to boost sensor output'. That doesnt mean he was sucessfull.

Except he WAS successful, as the episode depicted.

3. They are computer experts, they might know things about computers that simply dont occur to other people. They practically are computers the Bynars. SF does know how to use its computers, But to get something special out of them, specialists are needed.

Doesn't change the fact that Starfleet doesn't know how to use its own technology.

4. They did have a solution at hand, but ity would have injured the occupants I believe.

Bullshit. If they had any sort of real control over their systems, there should not have been ANY problem to begin with. They should have been able to just say, "Computer, end program." NO instance of routinely ending a holodeck program has proven to be harmful to people in the holodeck.

[Howedar]

3. Datalore: "Sir... you asked for the kind of computer upgrade that only the Bynars can handle." - Wesley again
- Why on Earth can only the Bynars - whoever the fuck they are - handle a computer upgrade on the Enterprise? Is that the 24th century equivalent of Apple? This indicates that Federation engineers do NOT have a complete understanding of their OWN computer systems.

In all fairness, computer upgrades shouldn't be the purview of the crew of the Enterprise. It would require additional training, and would actually be undesirable because you'd have meddling fools like Weasly fucking with the computers. It would be a good idea to keep general software upgrades out of the hands of the fleet and in the hands of the Starfleet equivilent to Navsea.

[SPOOFE]

In all fairness, computer upgrades shouldn't be the purview of the crew of the Enterprise.

I didn't say "the crew of the Enterprise". I said "the Federation".

EDIT: An analogy - Imagine if the United States needed to ask, say, Canada to upgrade their aircraft carriers.

[TurboPhaser]

And say Canada knew something the USA does not about Aircraft Carriers? Does that automatically make the USA inept and ignorant of the inner workings of an Aircraft carrier? No, it does not.

[His Divine Shadow]

And say Canada knew something the USA does not about Aircraft Carriers? Does that automatically make the USA inept and ignorant of the inner workings of an Aircraft carrier? No, it does not.

But what if the US had to get their fighters and carriers computer systems serviced by canadians because they couldn't do it themselves?

[Master of Ossus]

And say Canada knew something the USA does not about Aircraft Carriers? Does that automatically make the USA inept and ignorant of the inner workings of an Aircraft carrier? No, it does not.

Actually, it would come surprisingly close. It would mean that, in spite of the US' tremendous advantage of having classified material about the aircraft carriers, they STILL couldn't match the Canadian ability to improve aircraft carriers. That represents a huge technological edge for Canada, and probably means that the Americans were missing something about their original design specifications.

[SPOOFE]

And say Canada knew something the USA does not about Aircraft Carriers? Does that automatically make the USA inept and ignorant of the inner workings of an Aircraft carrier? No, it does not.

Yes, it WOULD, about that particular aspect of the carrier that Canada knew of and the US did not.

TP, this is the MAIN COMPUTER we're talking about here. The most important system to the entire ship. Taken together with the other examples I mentioned, it shows quite plainly that the Federation does NOT understand the technology they use, nor is it stable or predictable.

[Howedar]

In all fairness, computer upgrades shouldn't be the purview of the crew of the Enterprise.

I didn't say "the crew of the Enterprise". I said "the Federation".

EDIT: An analogy - Imagine if the United States needed to ask, say, Canada to upgrade their aircraft carriers.

Is that the situation? Thats certainly different than my understanding.

[Darth Wong]

In all fairness, computer upgrades shouldn't be the purview of the crew of the Enterprise.

I didn't say "the crew of the Enterprise". I said "the Federation".

EDIT: An analogy - Imagine if the United States needed to ask, say, Canada to upgrade their aircraft carriers.

Is that the situation? Thats certainly different than my understanding.

Keep in mind that there was no Federation presence on Bynar (otherwise they would have noticed that the entire planet had gone dead, and they certainly would have attempted to contact this base when the E-D was stolen). If Bynar is part of the Federation, it's a rather arms-length relationship, which is a pretty bad idea when no one else can service your computer systems.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Keep in mind that there was no Federation presence on Bynar (otherwise they would have noticed that the entire planet had gone dead, and they certainly would have attempted to contact this base when the E-D was stolen). If Bynar is part of the Federation, it's a rather arms-length relationship, which is a pretty bad idea when no one else can service your computer systems.

Bynar would be a perfect strike in a war by say, cloaked Romulans. Wipe out the "planetary computer" and they all die.