Upper limit photon torpedoes...

[Master of Ossus]

IIRC, in both of those episodes they said that a shot had a high probability of actually destroying the Enterprise.

[Zoink]

Can anyone tell me:

In the Voyager episode about the omega particle, Kim and Tuvok are making Janeway's 50 isoton torpedo. Kim picks up a part and gives it to Tuvok. I forget if they called it the "detonator" or "warhead"... it couldn't have weighed more than 1kg... can anyone confirm what they called it?

[Robert Walper]

IIRC, in both of those episodes they said that a shot had a high probability of actually destroying the Enterprise.

If such shots were even a significant fraction of the upper yield proposed here, then their expensive/difficult ability to deploy far higher yields makes little sense unless they can do so safely. And the Borg have shown the ability to track and shoot down long range tactical weaponry incoming at their vessel that could have very impressive firepower.

[Master of Ossus]

IIRC, in both of those episodes they said that a shot had a high probability of actually destroying the Enterprise.

If such shots were even a significant fraction of the upper yield proposed here, then their expensive/difficult ability to deploy far higher yields makes little sense unless they can do so safely. And the Borg have shown the ability to track and shoot down long range tactical weaponry incoming at their vessel that could have very impressive firepower.

When have the Borg shown the ability to shoot down incoming weapons fire? This could be useful. Did they fire on a torpedo, and destroy it?

[Robert Walper]

Can anyone tell me:

In the Voyager episode about the omega particle, Kim and Tuvok are making Janeway's 50 isoton torpedo. Kim picks up a part and gives it to Tuvok. I forget if they called it the "detonator" or "warhead"... it couldn't have weighed more than 1kg... can anyone confirm what they called it?

I don't recall the scene that accurately, but if it were to be conclusively shown that is what happened, that puts forth further doubt into this theory being realistically feasible(even by Trek standards I would think).

[Robert Walper]

IIRC, in both of those episodes they said that a shot had a high probability of actually destroying the Enterprise.

If such shots were even a significant fraction of the upper yield proposed here, then their expensive/difficult ability to deploy far higher yields makes little sense unless they can do so safely. And the Borg have shown the ability to track and shoot down long range tactical weaponry incoming at their vessel that could have very impressive firepower.

When have the Borg shown the ability to shoot down incoming weapons fire? This could be useful. Did they fire on a torpedo, and destroy it?

In "Best of Both Worlds Part 2", a Borg cube targetted and destroyed three incoming weapons of some sort. That was the "Mar Defence Perimeter", and since then has been widely hailed as a pathetic show on part of the Federation. Maybe the yield of those puppies just wasn't considered seriously enough.

[Kamakazie Sith]

IIRC, in both of those episodes they said that a shot had a high probability of actually destroying the Enterprise.

If such shots were even a significant fraction of the upper yield proposed here, then their expensive/difficult ability to deploy far higher yields makes little sense unless they can do so safely. And the Borg have shown the ability to track and shoot down long range tactical weaponry incoming at their vessel that could have very impressive firepower.

When have the Borg shown the ability to shoot down incoming weapons fire? This could be useful. Did they fire on a torpedo, and destroy it?

It wasn't a torpedo. At least it didn't look like a trek torpedo, but you can see it on TNG "Best of Both Worlds" I can't remember which parts......

[Master of Ossus]

Oh, shoot. Actually, those were just some sort of crappy defense fighter and not a weapon, but it was a tiny fraction of SF's total commitment to the battle.

[Robert Walper]

When have the Borg shown the ability to shoot down incoming weapons fire? This could be useful. Did they fire on a torpedo, and destroy it?

I should point out that isn't direct proof these were any type of "torpedo", they could possible have been ships. However, they seemed rather small, maybe the size of shuttlecraft or smaller.

Does anyone have an image for analysis?

[Robert Walper]

Oh, shoot. Actually, those were just some sort of crappy defense fighter and not a weapon, but it was a tiny fraction of SF's total commitment to the battle.

I wasn't aware these had been determined as fighter craft...how was this conclusion reached? And why would Starfleet even both deploying these after forty of their capital ships have been slaughtered?

[Master of Ossus]

Oh, shoot. Actually, those were just some sort of crappy defense fighter and not a weapon, but it was a tiny fraction of SF's total commitment to the battle.

I wasn't aware these had been determined as fighter craft...how was this conclusion reached? And why would Starfleet even both deploying these after forty of their capital ships have been slaughtered?

I think that conclusion was reached by a close-examination of the objects in question revealing that they had windows. It may have also come from the ST:Encyclopedia, but I remember that they have been called "orbital defense fighters" in the past.

It's unclear why SF would bother to send them, but it's possible that they felt they could slow the Borg down by forcing an engagement, to give more people a chance to escape, or to give the E-D a chance to catch up.

[Robert Walper]

I wasn't aware these had been determined as fighter craft...how was this conclusion reached? And why would Starfleet even both deploying these after forty of their capital ships have been slaughtered?

I think that conclusion was reached by a close-examination of the objects in question revealing that they had windows.

I suppose it's possible that such craft(if they were indeed craft) were loaded up with high yield explosives. Sending a couple of fighter craft out to engage a cube that can blow the saucer off an Excelsier class starship in seconds seems a little too improbable, or just crazy if they think they'd accomplish anything(including delaying the cube).

It may have also come from the ST:Encyclopedia, but I remember that they have been called "orbital defense fighters" in the past.

Well, I'm first to line up questinoing the validity of the ST:Encyclopedia.

It's unclear why SF would bother to send them, but it's possible that they felt they could slow the Borg down by forcing an engagement, to give more people a chance to escape, or to give the E-D a chance to catch up.

Given Starfleet should have known how easily the Borg converted their fleet to scrap metal, it would seem highly unlikely they could expect any type of resistance on the part of three fighter craft. On the other hand, if those were weapons of mass destruction, or even craft armed with high yield explosives, it would make a little more sense. After all, there might have been a chance that least one would get through the cube's defensives to deliver it's payload.

[Master of Ossus]

Their explosions weren't very good, for a WoMD. Maybe they were sent out there to create a Tholian Web, or something equally random.

[Robert Walper]

Their explosions weren't very good, for a WoMD. Maybe they were sent out there to create a Tholian Web, or something equally random.

The Borg may have done more than just aim a weapon and fire at the craft. They may have employed some technology that prevented them from detonating, something Starfleet hadn't prepared for, and therefore explained the ease in which the cube went through them.

If I'm not mistaken, destroying the craft may not have detonated their payload. If I recall correctly, the United States was creating a "Star Wars" program that would use lasers to destroy nuclear weapons without detonating their payloads(I may be wrong, a little shady that is). The Borg may have employed a similar method(though unlikely it was lasers, probably treknobabble if anything).

Note: MOO, I'm heading off to work in three minutes, I'll have to continue this later...

[D.Turtle]

The way the "Star Wars" system was supposed to work, was to use lasers to destroy the warhead (or at the very least the trigger).
Since nuclear warheads need to be triggered in order to explode, the nukes wouldn't have exploded.

Maybe the Federation thought, that the Borg Cube would have problems targetting the fighters, and that they could theoreticaly have been effective because of that.

What range were the fighters destroyed at?

[SPOOFE]

1 gram of matter reacting with one gram of AM yields 21.5 kilotons.

Perhaps, in Q Who?, this was the concern instead of a massive proximity explosion... with the shields down, a spare speck of unreacted antimatter ejected from a torpedo could level a kiloton-level explosion against the unshielded Enterprise.

[seanrobertson]

WRT the "Mars Defense Perimeter,"

Is there any indication, anywhere, that the drones (haha )
sent to attack the cube were just big warheads attached to impulse
engines? Of course, I mean beyond the fact that they
were just plowing toward the cube without shooting phasers
or the like...

It's not a bad idea, and even the potential existence
of windows on the buggers doesn't mean they're not
just big flying warheads...even the Cardassian
"Dreadnought" had living spaces, if not windows.

Still, the MDP "probes" were pretty small--much much less
than 100m long IIRC. I don't remember exactly how large
Dreadnaught was supposed to be, but her
yield was 1 metric ton of antimatter, with a
theoretical yield of about 21 gigatons.

It'd certainly make sense for Starfleet to use similar
weapons against a Borg cube (if SF makes such
weapons of course...seems awfully "bad guy" to me
but SF would be stupid not to try), but Dreadnaught's
lethality would, as previously stated, set a very firm
upper-limit on the abilities of any single photon torpedo.
Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it represents at least
something on the level of a single well-equipped starship's
entire photorp inventory. (E.g., the Enterprise-D's
250 photorps would equal no more than 21 gigatons total,
with an effective yield on targets significantly less, perhaps...
oh, say, ~8 gigatons, for ~32 MT/torpedo.)

That's pretty subjective, but I honestly don't see the point
of a Dreadnaught if the same job could be duplicated
by a handful of Galor-class cruisers. The case might
be made that the Dreadie is a lot faster than the Galors
(when in VGR's timeline was it trotted out?), and to be sure
that it destroys a target faster, but the question becomes,
by how much?

The fact remains, the D was made to strike worlds relatively
close to Cardassian territory; specifically, Maquis planets
in the DMZ, though I'm sure the weapon was conceived
earlier than that (probably in response to the Federation's
overall superiority in every imaginable arena with the
arguable exception of hull strength/integrity). Thus, far
greater warp speeds to reach targets really isn't a feasible
reason to explain why it, rather than a few Cardassian warships,
could strike something faster.

Overall yield is really the only thing that explains its existence.
This is especially hard to demonstrate, though, since Cardassian
ships don't even *use* photorps onscreen.

OTOH, I doubt that a Dreadnought weapon has a yield
some millions of times that of a single photorp, translating
to photorps of 90 kilotons or so.

VERY loosely, that'd seem to indicate a kind of logical
golden mean--that photorps are in the hundreds of kT
or low megaton range, as a rule. I think that could be
comfortably accomodated with the preponderance of
visual evidence if barely so.

[seanrobertson]

1 gram of matter reacting with one gram of AM yields 21.5 kilotons.

Perhaps, in Q Who?, this was the concern instead of a massive proximity explosion... with the shields down, a spare speck of unreacted antimatter ejected from a torpedo could level a kiloton-level explosion against the unshielded Enterprise.

Hmm...I kinda doubt it, though. I have that episode on laserdisc
(I'm probably one of the few that doesn't have it on DVD,
though I'd love to), and I watched it many times since I didn't
have many LDs

Data said, from my memory, "Sir, at this range, there is a high
degree of probability that a photon detonation could destroy
the Enterprise."

I rather doubt he was thinking of wasted antimatter. And when
put with "The Nth Degree," such becomes all the more unlikely.

Still, one, as Lord Wong, could no doubt make the case that
the crew was simply being downright anal. I truly *hate* to
blow characters off if there's no other contextually-proper
indication that they're flat-out *wrong*, but other than thinking
there can be very high-yield torpedoes as Robert is suggesting,
I see no other logical avenue.

Indeed, there *is* support, if tentative, that a wide variance
in torpedo yields exists: "Scorpion II." After we're told about
these mighty Type Six torpedoes, Janeway lobs a Type Ten
at Species ABCDEFG. It's a huge blast, too, compared to what
the standard photorps did.

What I don't get is how the nanoprobes survive such a blast.
To be sure, to conclude that the Borg 5 million isoton device
would result in no "realspace" explosion is hasty...but how
do the nanoprobes survive? For God's sake, they can be
transmitted through a *phaser* stream!

Damn Trek's subspace shit. I love Star Trek but I swear,
the day they hired someone to tackle portions of the
script reading "tech" was the day they shot the golden
goose.

[His Divine Shadow]

Welcome to reality. It's utterly impossible to release any more than 9E16 J of energy from 1 kg of matter, through any process.

Ofcourse note the measurement, I believe it can be a measurement of volume too, not mass.

[Marcus]

Unless, of course, its Hypermatter.

[Darth Wong]

Who said hypermatter releases more than 9E16 J/kg? SW hypermatter appears to have complex mass.

[Ted C]

Who said hypermatter releases more than 9E16 J/kg? SW hypermatter appears to have complex mass.

Now THERE'S a term I've never heard before. What the hell is "complex mass"?

[SirNitram]

Who said hypermatter releases more than 9E16 J/kg? SW hypermatter appears to have complex mass.

Now THERE'S a term I've never heard before. What the hell is "complex mass"?

My incomplete understanding says that some of the mass exists outside the normal three dimensions.

[Durandal]

Welcome to reality. It's utterly impossible to release any more than 9E16 J of energy from 1 kg of matter, through any process.

Ofcourse note the measurement, I believe it can be a measurement of volume too, not mass.

Plug a volume into E = mc^2 for m and see if you get joules as your output unit.

[Durandal]

Who said hypermatter releases more than 9E16 J/kg? SW hypermatter appears to have complex mass.

Now THERE'S a term I've never heard before. What the hell is "complex mass"?

From a purely mathematical standpoint, it's slapping an "i" in the end of the value for mass, denoting a complex or imaginary number.