"one" example of a Federation advantage

Enola Straight · Post by **Enola Straight** » 2002-12-13 03:55pm

)In the Thrawn trilogy, Starships, shuttles, and fighters must follow behind a giant umbrella-shaped shield ship to prevent damage from thermal radiation coming from the sun as the ships approach inner planets.
(how do they resist the heat of re-entry?)

The Enterprise-D successfully flew into a star, when they employed the metaphasic shields (invented in an earlier episode by Ferengi engineer Dr. Rayga).

Is this example sound? Are there others...like transporters?(boo...hiss

)

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2002-12-13 04:09pm

A difficult situation to analyze. The star is supposed to be unique, and given that a normal star's surface output(Over the profile of a TF Core Ship) is one billionth(Calc's in the SW vs Culture thread in Other-Scifi) of a TF Core Ship's shields peak strength, you will have a hard time proving there's a major advantage here.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-12-13 04:18pm

Hello? Did you miss the whole part about that being a very, very hot sun. God damnit, stop twisting everything.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-12-13 04:23pm

Well as I recall the metaphasic shields were first tested on an unusually hot sun although that was only the shuttle model and not the fullscale Ent-D version.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-12-13 04:50pm

That star emitted some sort of technobabble radiation that fucked with SW ship systems. Rare enough for shields and armor to not be optimized for it. Poe's got a good commentary on this brain bug.

SW ships have survived in the corona of a star easy before.

That one was different.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-12-13 05:08pm

That star was obviously particularly unusual in the amount of radiation it cranked out. ISD's have been VERY close to stars in the past, and passed between stars in binary systems. Small Borg scouts are destroyed by glancing blows from solar flares, and near-misses from standard solar flares have damaged the Enterprise-D.

Incidentally, there are numerous sub-fields of technology that the UFP appears to be superior to the Empire in. Especially in some fields of medical technology. You can read an essay I wrote on comparing the two medical technologies on this very website. Look for a thread appropriately entitled "Medical Technology" using the "Search" function on the top right of your screen. Be sure to search for a thread with ALL the terms in the bar, instead of either of them.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2002-12-14 06:02am

Incidentally, there are numerous sub-fields of technology that the UFP appears to be superior to the Empire in.

Like the science of "glowy sparkly neato-keen special effects". Apparently, Star Trek is so much more advanced because every piece of technology in existence - even the toilet paper, I bet - emits fields of photons when used.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-12-14 12:54pm

SPOOFE wrote:
Incidentally, there are numerous sub-fields of technology that the UFP appears to be superior to the Empire in.
Like the science of "glowy sparkly neato-keen special effects". Apparently, Star Trek is so much more advanced because every piece of technology in existence - even the toilet paper, I bet - emits fields of photons when used.

lol. A kleenex is now "A medium velocity biological partical arrest device manufactured to the most stringent parameters to be squeezably soft."

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2002-12-14 01:16pm

Master of Ossus wrote:That star was obviously particularly unusual in the amount of radiation it cranked out. ISD's have been VERY close to stars in the past, and passed between stars in binary systems. Small Borg scouts are destroyed by glancing blows from solar flares, and near-misses from standard solar flares have damaged the Enterprise-D.

Heh heh...only that scout was a big, honkin' motherfucker

(I did some limit measurements of the thing once...I think
it was about a mile wide, give or take a couple hundred meters.)
The only thing that gives me pause in making conclusions from its destruction is the fact that it was destroyed seconds after the E-D
caused the flare, yet the ship was outside that star's corona (?).
But IIRC, the visuals show something else.

Side-note:
I tried to forget that episode in general. It started out well enough
I guess, though I always thought the "angry Borg" thing
was cheesy. The writers claim to have intended it to have a
huge impact...and I find that, when someone counts on such
things, they're usually compensating for shortcomings elsewhere.
Sorta like Evander Holyfield's first fight with what's-his-name...
uhh...big, tall guy. Right, Lennox Lewis. Holyfield was counting
on a third round knockout; but when it didn't come, his whole
plan fell to pieces.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-12-14 01:33pm

seanrobertson wrote:
Master of Ossus wrote:That star was obviously particularly unusual in the amount of radiation it cranked out. ISD's have been VERY close to stars in the past, and passed between stars in binary systems. Small Borg scouts are destroyed by glancing blows from solar flares, and near-misses from standard solar flares have damaged the Enterprise-D.
Heh heh...only that scout was a big, honkin' motherfucker
(I did some limit measurements of the thing once...I think
it was about a mile wide, give or take a couple hundred meters.)
The only thing that gives me pause in making conclusions from its destruction is the fact that it was destroyed seconds after the E-D
caused the flare, yet the ship was outside that star's corona (?).
But IIRC, the visuals show something else.

That scout is a mile wide? Cool. I never knew that. Thanks, Sean. I would have estimated it to be no larger than half a kilometer, so I guess I underestimated that thing.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2002-12-14 02:27pm

When you see the E-D knifefighting with it, the Borg ship is clearly much bigger.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2002-12-14 02:28pm

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-12-14 03:03pm

This is the Borg we are talking about remember a phaser blast can polish off 20% of their cube ships when their shields aren't ready for it.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2002-12-14 04:13pm

Howedar wrote:http://www.ditl.org/Gengrafix/borgtranswrp2.jpg

Yeah, I watched that episode set last night on TNN, and the Borg ships seems to at least be the size of a Romulan D'deridex.

Crossover_Maniac · Post by **Crossover_Maniac** » 2002-12-14 10:56pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:
Howedar wrote:http://www.ditl.org/Gengrafix/borgtranswrp2.jpg
Yeah, I watched that episode set last night on TNN, and the Borg ships seems to at least be the size of a Romulan D'deridex.

No, it's length was at least twice that of the D'derdex. That would make the cube at least 16 times the volume fo the D'deridex (twice as long, twice as wide, and 4 times as tall) and without that big space between the head and nacelles.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2002-12-16 01:11am

http://h4h.com/louis/suns.html

nightmare · Post by **nightmare** » 2002-12-17 09:25am

I might also add that the entire ROTJ rebel fleet was hidden in the core of a star in a comic I read ages ago. It was protected by a special shield generator, the ships were offline and the people were elsewhere.

Mind you, C-3PO was able to survive in the star's core too, without any shield. R2 needed somekind of reflective blanket. It was a yellow G-type, average star. I don't recall the temperature exactly, but it was up in many millions. Also, it wasn't in the center of the star, just a few thousand km below the surface.

Just a fun oddity I thought I should mention.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-17 10:20am

Yup that definitely comes under oddity.