Examination of this dialouge from 'The Survivors'

[TurboPhaser]

This is not a Vs debate first off. I was perusing DArth Wongs canon Trek section on Shields when i found this bit of dialouge from 'The Survivors'.

I'll post my thoughts on this matter, and we can have meaningfull discussion.

(The Husnock warship returns and approaches to within 5 km again)
PICARD: Lieutenant Worf, open a hailing frequency. Warn the vessel to stay clear of the planet.
WORF: Aye, sir. But they are already within firing range.
(The Husnock ship fires)
WORF: Shields down! Captain, they hit us with four hundred gigawatts of particle energy!
PICARD: Damage?
WORF: Superficial -- but I am having trouble reassembling the shields!
(The Husnock ship fires again)
WORF: Shields down! There is thermal damage to the hull!
DATA: The warship is in possession of enormous energy reserves. It is capable of striking us with far more powerful bursts.
WESLEY: They're maneuvering to come between the Enterprise and Rana Four.
PICARD: Number One, we have been exemplary in our patience.
RIKER: Lieutenant Worf, fire phasers on full with a simultaneous spread of torpedoes.
(The Enterprise finally returns fire)
DATA: The vessel appears undamaged. Its defenses are apparently able to absorb incoming matter and energy.
RIKER: Commence rapid fire with all weapons on full!
(The Enterprise unloads on the Husnock ship, with a nice display of at least a dozen torpedoes and a similar number of phaser blasts. The Husnock ship returns fire and numerous bridge consoles erupt in showers of sparks)
WORF: Shields are down! There is internal damage -- weapon systems control has been lost!
RIKER: Riker to Sickbay. Medical assistance to the bridge!
PICARD: Mister Crusher, move the Enterprise out of range of the attacking vessel!

1. It is interesting to note that Worf said 'Sheilds down' 3 times. Does this suggest he was able to get some level of sheilding back up in time?

2. In the second volley from the nasty Husnock, lets say that the energy did hit the hull, as suggested by the dialouge. Worf may have just said 'shields down' just to remind them he hadnt fixed them yet. Anyway, that energy bolt only did thermal damage to the hull. Thats pretty good considering how thin and how dotted with windows the GCS's hulls are.

3. This exchange demonstrates the GCS's impressive rate of weapons fire.

4. In the first shot that broke the E-D's sheilds, he said 'Particle energy' as opposed to pure energy. It is possible that Fed sheilds are vulnerable to this particular type of weapon. Pure energy of the same level may not have been as damaging.

5. Again, it is odd that Worf says 3 times that the shields are down. Any theories?

6. Worf said something about 'Reassembling the sheilds'. This sugests that he could have re-raised the sheilds fairly quickly if he had not had trouble.

Well, I'm done for the moment. Thoughts?

EDIT: Spelling errors.

[Straha]

Just as a question, how much power is 400 gigawatts?

[Master of Ossus]

Just as a question, how much power is 400 gigawatts?

Not a lot.

Incidentally, if the shields were down and stayed down the entire time, it would demonstrate VERY inconsistent firepower for the Husnock starship. With the first shot to the bare hull under that theory, only minor thermal damage was incurred. In the second shot with the shields down, the Husnock did significant internal damage to the ship. That is not consistent with the amount of damage the first shot did.

The episode is remarkable for Worf's attempt to "reassemble" the shields. Perhaps he had managed to set up partial defenses against the subsequent blasts, but was unable to get the shields back up at anything resembling full strength?

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Just as a question, how much power is 400 gigawatts?

400 billion watts.



If you mean firepower, assuming it was a one second shot it's 400 gigajoules (200 GJ less than Slave 1's blasters) or 95 tons (note: The B-36 "Peacemaker" and B-52 "BUFF" have maximum bomb loads of 43 and 31.5 tons respectively)


Of course it the blast was a 1/2 a second burst the firepower is cut in half. If it was 1/10 second burst, it's only 40 gigajoules (9.5 tons), or less then what a B-29 carried.

[Ender]

Just as a question, how much power is 400 gigawatts?

'Bout 4 times the output of a civillian nuclear reactor plant.

[TurboPhaser]

Just as a question, how much power is 400 gigawatts?

It is an enourmous amount, just not much in science fiction terms.

[Howedar]

It is enormous in terms of sustained power, but in short bursts is extremely small compared to even tactical nuclear weapons.

[Darth Wong]

Just as a question, how much power is 400 gigawatts?

'Bout 4 times the output of a civillian nuclear reactor plant.

Sorry buddy, but you're a couple of orders of magnitude off. It is four hundred times the output of a typical civilian nuclear reactor. The average nuke reactor is about 1 GW. An entire large-scale plant might have 4 or 8 reactors.

[Isolder74]

Just as a question, how much power is 400 gigawatts?

Enough to run 4,000,000,000 100 Watt light bulbs for 1 hour!

[TurboPhaser]

Grrr, enough with the Gigawatts and lightbulbs, I typed other things worthy of discussion you know!

[MrAnderson]

Just as a question, how much power is 400 gigawatts?

Not a lot.

Incidentally, if the shields were down and stayed down the entire time, it would demonstrate VERY inconsistent firepower for the Husnock starship. With the first shot to the bare hull under that theory, only minor thermal damage was incurred. In the second shot with the shields down, the Husnock did significant internal damage to the ship. That is not consistent with the amount of damage the first shot did.

The episode is remarkable for Worf's attempt to "reassemble" the shields. Perhaps he had managed to set up partial defenses against the subsequent blasts, but was unable to get the shields back up at anything resembling full strength?

The ship didnt really exist. It was a cration of the Doud below and was there to scare the Enterprise away. Since this is the case I doubt we can infer much about the power of the blasts that hit the Enterprise since obviously the intent was not to destroy her.

[TurboPhaser]

No, it wasnt real. We are working under the assumption that Mr. Super Alien provided a realistic copy of the Husnock warship.

[Ted C]

The ship didnt really exist. It was a cration of the Doud below and was there to scare the Enterprise away. Since this is the case I doubt we can infer much about the power of the blasts that hit the Enterprise since obviously the intent was not to destroy her.

Ya know, not long ago there was a whole thread on that topic...

[Uraniun235]

In "The Wounded", Worf says in response to the order to release the Pheonix's transponder code "They will be able to dismantle it's shields!"

[Isolder74]

In "The Wounded", Worf says in response to the order to release the Pheonix's transponder code "They will be able to dismantle it's shields!"

If I was Worf i would worry more about the enemy being able to use it to figure out how to disable any Federation ship by using the one we give them to figure out how to do it to other of our ships.

[Uraniun235]

They refer to the "prefix codes of the Phoenix", so I doubt one set of codes works for every ship in the fleet. Besides, codes can be changed... and Picard was ordered to maintain the peace "at all costs."

[Isolder74]

They refer to the "prefix codes of the Phoenix", so I doubt one set of codes works for every ship in the fleet. Besides, codes can be changed... and Picard was ordered to maintain the peace "at all costs."

What I mean is all the other codes are similer so if the enemy has one then they can figure out how the others work. It surprises me there are no hackers in Star Trek.

[The Silence and I]

Turbophaser wrote:

1. It is interesting to note that Worf said 'Sheilds down' 3 times. Does this suggest he was able to get some level of sheilding back up in time?

I had the impression he lost shields the first time, re-assembled partial shields in time for the second-while minor damage still got through-and simply had none or very little shielding the third time-resulting in greater damage.

2. In the second volley from the nasty Husnock, lets say that the energy did hit the hull, as suggested by the dialouge. Worf may have just said 'shields down' just to remind them he hadnt fixed them yet. Anyway, that energy bolt only did thermal damage to the hull. Thats pretty good considering how thin and how dotted with windows the GCS's hulls are.

I believe Worf had restored partial shielding for this shot, but yes, structural integrity fields are often just inside the ballpark with the shields when it comes to absorbing weapons fire.

3. This exchange demonstrates the GCS's impressive rate of weapons fire.

Yes Now if only they used it more often... (Generations comes to mind on the top of a long list)

4. In the first shot that broke the E-D's sheilds, he said 'Particle energy' as opposed to pure energy. It is possible that Fed sheilds are vulnerable to this particular type of weapon. Pure energy of the same level may not have been as damaging.

I'm inclined to agree this was an unusual weapon, and may have interacted with the shield in ways pure energy would not have.

5. Again, it is odd that Worf says 3 times that the shields are down. Any theories?

You have mine.

6. Worf said something about 'Reassembling the sheilds'. This sugests that he could have re-raised the sheilds fairly quickly if he had not had trouble.

This is part of why I don't think firepower brought down the E-D's shields. Normally shields are brought down in a fire-fight, and they stay down. If the weapon just managed to scramble the shields, then Worf might be expected to unscramble them.