Star Wars firepower: embarrassingly bad, like their tactics

[Metahive]

On any modern warship, I'm pretty sure that the speed and course of the ship could be changed from the engine room without access to a computer.

First Contact showed it's entirely possibe to control the ship from the engine room. So I guess they put some more thought into designing the Sovereign class, hooray?

[Ted C]

The antimatter storage pods have no automatic safety mechanism to eject them when containment failure is imminent.

GEORDI
In the event of a breach of seal
integrity there is an emergency
release system which dumps the
antimatter.

From "Contagion".

I recall that discussion from the episode, and Geordi is talking about the warp core, not the antimatter pods.

From "Disaster" is the counter point:

O'BRIEN
(ominously)
If it falls to fifteen percent...
the field will collapse and
there'll be a containment breach.

Beat.

TROI
Which means... ?

RO
The ship will explode.

People often say Troi is an idiot for not knowing this... but she might have heard of the dump Geordi was talking about in the earlier episode. She might have honestly thought a containment breech would simply mean the dump goes off and the ship is unharmed (although out of antimatter fuel).

And in this episode, they're talking about the antimatter pods. The warp core had actually shut down safely (the shutdown mechanism doesn't always fail), as had the impulse engines.

WESLEY
Why would the Romulans be having
problems? They haven't been
probed.

STAR TREK: "Contagion" - 01/09/89 - ACT THREE 35.

33 CONTINUED: (5)

RIKER
They must have tapped into the
Yamato log. Taris got a whole
lot more than she bargained for.

Not just a Galaxy class flaw!

Can't argue with that. Poor computer security seems to be ubiquitous in Star Trek.

GEORDI
I don't see why not... but it will
have to be a complete shutdown.
We turn her off, effect a wipe
of the Yamato log and every
subsequent event since we
downloaded it. I'll then reload
all the ship's programs from the
protected archives in the main
core.

There obviously are backups, and it only took a few seconds for them to do the restore. I wonder if this is their plan for failure: just wipe and reset, which is what Data did automatically to himself. (If it is the recommended procedue though... why didn't Geordi think of it right off the bat? Aaargh.)

Essentially switching off everything, formatting the hard drive, and reinstalling all the software from CDs or a physically disconnected backup drive.

I've got disaster open too, so let's skim it and see what fun shit is in there.

Disaster is from season 5.

PICARD
(softly)
Number One, those big clamps are
part of the emergency system. If
something goes wrong, they're
designed to hold the turbolift in
place.

That sounds good, though if the computer cranks up the motor, they don't trigger (like in Contagion). Still, not too bad.

They also failed in this episode. The lift car came loose after a while.

TROI
(without turning
around)
You said there's no way to
stabilize the containment field
from the bridge. Could it be
done from engineering?

O'BRIEN
Yes... but my readings indicate
there's no power down there.
They don't even have monitors to
tell them there's a problem.


TROI
Could we divert energy from the
bridge... to those monitors?

O'BRIEN
Yes, sir.

How bizarre, they can transfer power to the monitors, but they can't operate the machine. Probably the computer control has failed, and they need someone there to work the manual override.

Except the solution involved Data's head being connected to the engineering network and functioning as a backup computer. There was no manual override.

[StarSword]

Could a mod fix D13's double-post please?

Does Tarkin have a missus, or does he just go for Twi'lek hookers when he wants some action?

Don't know if you were actually serious here, but I'll answer this. As early as Darksaber, we know that Tarkin was married. We also know that he had Adm. Natasi Daala as his mistress. In Death Star, she even came to visit him at one point. (Later she suffered a head injury when a Rebel Lucrehulk full of X-Wings attacked the construction site. This might account for her incompetence later on, since we know she lost the last year of her memory.)

Death Star is probably one of the best recent EU novels there is (along with Millennium Falcon), but I don't remember if they went into detail on the Alderaan decision beyond what we saw in the movie. Might have to dig it out and re-read it.

Most sci-fi, really, which annoys me. BBC America has been showing some nBSG on Saturdays, and I've been watching that too.

Not long ago was the episode where they *gasp* networked some computers - with cables - yet the Cylons immediately started breaking down the firewalls... one by one ... ugh. Actually explainable, sort of, but ugh.

I kinda wonder if both Cylons and Iconians use some kind of magic FTL to get into the computers, instead of a wireless access point like we're familiar with.

A program going from sensors to the rest of the system and running is maybe possible, but ought to be really unlikely.

I was thinking the internal comm system, myself.

But, if they use QUANTUM to like fiddle the bits on the drives or otherwise physically implant themselves on the computer's circuitry, they could bypass this kind of barrier. This could explain bullshit like "Masks" too, where the rewriting went even further.

Leaves an unsatisfying answer though: why did downloading the Yamato's logs apparently spread it to the Enterprise? Without the custom hardware of the probes, QUANTUM seems somewhat unlikely, and it was just rewriting shit, rather than being a worm designed to hack into federation update prefix code whatevers to propagate. It hit the Romulans too without needing a probe, appaently, so poo.

I don't think Star Trek uses quantum computers, honestly. Based on Data's summation of his processing power in TNG: "The Measure of a Man" (I think he said something like 60 GHz, but I could be wrong on the exact number), I have a sneaking suspicion they're still using solid-state circuitry in Star Trek: if what I've heard about theoretical quantum computers is accurate (namely that they could break current encryptions that would take hundreds of years for a silicon-based supercomputer), his processor should be several orders of magnitude faster.

Yeah, I know they say Data uses positronic circuitry, but this is frankly nonsensical since positrons are a form of antimatter. Another case of the writers' using something that sounds cool but doesn't make any sense.


As for downloading Yamato's logs spreading the virus to the Enterprise, that's called "the logs got infected by the virus". Similar events have been known to happen in real life.

[Connor MacLeod]

Actually I'd bet that "positronic brain" is a tribute to Asimov's sci fi, since they had positronic robots. And without really knowing how the positrons are involved in the process we can't really say how bullshit it is or not. I mean its not like "laser discs" are made of real lasers. There's a laser that's part of the process.

As far as the whole "engineering mishap" goes I would be more concerned about whether things stay mishaps or if they end up correcting them or not. Fuckups happen for various reasons (human error, politics, greed, whatever.) but its the persistence of the behaviour and the inability or refusal to change that make it problematic (EG some of the problems with the Borg and their MO.)

And while I know the OP is half-farcical in order to make a point like Stark said, I'm simply going to reiterate a point because I know someone is going to taket he OP at face value: "megajoule" blasters, phasers, lasguns, Delameters, rayguns or deathrays of any kind - the effects we observe depend on how the weapon is meant to interact with the target and how the weapon is designed (does it have multiple settings or varying configurations? Does it simulate explosions, burn them to death, burn out the nervous system, disintegrate, etc. We know blasters have multiple settings for example, as this is explicitly mentioned in the ANH novelization - they can set their blasters for maximum power as well as reduced power levels.)

[StarSword]

*dilbert*

Oh god, clients actually do that. At least once a week someone comes to me and says "I want some jQuery" or similar bullshit.

In business, I've determined listening to customers is almost useless.... what you really have to do is read their minds to get the end goal, then figure out the rest by yourself, almost ignoring any kind of technical suggestion. (I say almost because such suggestions can sometimes give clues as to what they ultimately want, but acting on them directly is often a waste of everybody's time.)

That's nothing. One of my dad's friends does tech support for the county school system. One day he gets a call from a lady saying her trackball isn't working. He goes over there to find out it's an upside-down mouse. He turns it right-side up.

She goes, "Oh, now it's a mouse!"



I believe the term is PEBKAC: "Problem exists between keyboard and chair."

[Purple]

Have you two considered making a thread for these things? It would be a fun read to say the least.

[StarSword]

<off-topic>I've only got two such stories, unfortunately. The trackball one, and the one where the lady (it always seems to be a woman *shrug*) thought her CD-ROM drive was a cupholder.

EDIT: Isn't there a Venting thread for these already in the HoS?</off-topic>

[Azron_Stoma]

Also, a note on core ejection. If they plan to eject their main power source seconds before it explodes, surely that just leaves them with a super-size photon torpdeo beneath their ship with nothing to power the shields?

I'm not sure, but I think the warp core just powers the warp drive. (I've heard conflicting data on this.)

Supplying power to the warp drive is its main purpose, but power from the warp core can definitely be used by other systems.

Yeah but the systems can't handle much of that power, since DS9, which uses Fusion exclusively, has more powerful phasers and shields than any starship by season 4.

[Darth Fanboy]

Was Alderaan the main Rebel base anyway?

I'd go with it, sort of. We know the plans were going there - Leia pointed Ben in that direction too.

It's possible that was just a middleman location though; her father would forward the plans to Yavin and she didn't go directly out of fear of being followed. (Also record Alderaan on the message in case R2 was captured - better to give up a middleman than the final answer.)

There may have been a Rebel presence on Alderaan but it certainly wasn't a "main Rebel base". The reason Obi Wan and crew were going to Alderaan is because, as you know, Bail was going to enlist his aid in fighting the Empire, they certainly wouldn't have been there for long. Aside from planetary defenses, including a powerful shield, Alderaan had largely disarmed (we know that whatever planetary navy they had was decomissioned and exiled into deep space, reference Another Chance).

At the time, as members of the Alderaanian government, Leia and Bail believed that they enjoyed some diplomatic protections from the Empire, but the disbanding of the Imperial Senate countered that.

But, the reason I still say it's a kind of main base is that we know they supported them heavily. Jimmy Smits was in on the stuff from the beginning. Rebel soldiers very often are seen wearing the uniforms of the guys on Leia's ship - which was allegedly a ship of the Alderaan senator, so presmably they'd be wearing their national uniform rather than a rebel getup.

So, we can conclude that Alderaan gives them both political (sympathy in the senate) and military support. (Leia says they have no weapons.... what she didn't say is the reason for that is all Alderaan's weapons are on loan to the fucking rebellion!)

While they might not have actually stored ships there, it seems to do everything else.

I would not say that Alderaan provided political support, as government officials they would have had to be outwardly supportive on the Empire (at least for the most part, disloyal systems did not fare well even before the Death Star was built) and support the rebellion in secret. As I said Alderaan's own ships were dismantled and their weapons were actually stored aboard the ship Another Chance and exiled into space. The ship and cargo were not recovered or put in use until after the planet's destruction, and it was not much. Although there was a lot of support and sympathy for the Rebellion, Alderaan was a very pacifist planet as well.

Rather, Alderaan was less a military and more of a political target. Alderaan's pacifists opposed the Empire's militarism, and the planet's protection of free speech allowed for beings from different species to voice their concerns via protests. These protests started not long after the reorganization of the Republic when Darth Vader made his first visit to the world as an emissary of the Emperor not long after the Clone War ended.

Now, speaking on the Death Star, it really strikes me as rather silly in an empire with millions of worlds. (Don't worry, some day, I'll make a thread "Star Wars Empire: pathetically small" and get all this shit in one place ).

The Rebellion is kinda grassroots. In that script I was reading earlier, there were a lot of scenes in the beginning, cut from the final film, with Luke and Biggs talking about joining it.

It is "kinda" grassroots, but it also has its origins in the halls of power in the Republic Senate, with the Delegation of the 2000. Deleted scenes from RoTS and the novel depict the foundings of what would become the Rebel Alliance as PAdme Amidala holds private talks with Mon Mothma and Bail Organa.

In the movie, Luke certainly knew about the rebellion and insisted on hating it.

I assume you mean, "knew about the Empire"?

It wasn't too hard for him to get some support from almost random people, like Han. He said he was in it for the money, but he did stick around - if he wasn't already at least somewhat sympathetic to the cause, I don't think he would have done that.

Han Solo, former officer of the Imperial navy who abandoned his comission after freeing a Wookiee slave? Naaaaaaaw.

So, what that tells me is there's enough support for it to be distributed.


Now, I think it *must* be distributed to be able to stand up to such a huge place. With millions of systems, I'd expect there to be at hundreds of major bases. At the very least several more than just one or two.

If Alderaan was indeed a base, it blew up and the rebellion survived, speaking to there still being more out there.

Obviously Yavin IV wasn't just a fly-by-night operation, they appeared to be very well established there. But the Rebellion were also very good at being mobile and moving their bases as needed. Note how well they were organized in ESB when the Empire attacked Hoth. They weren't exactly happy they had been discovered but the transports were ready, the ion cannon was in place, all there was to do was to pack everything and get out of town.

What does this have to do with the Death Star: it's just bad policy. It doesn't make sense to have a huge single point build up to fight a distributed network. (BTW, I also used to find the Death Star somewhat silly when they have Star Destroyers. So it can blow up a planet. Who cares? Star destroyers destroy stars. Hey, I was like 10 at the time. The weird thing is the vs debate has put my back into that... yes yes, I know, planetary shields, lol.)

There was more to it that sheer firepower, the Emperor wanted something that could instill fear and frighten dissidents into compliance, while also giving him a powerful weapon that he could rule from in order to force his own potentially mutinous underlings in line.

Now, maybe DS1 was a mistake that seemed like a good idea early on... but they didn't cancel DS2 when it proved to be more bad than good! Destroying Alderaan hurt the Rebellion less than destroying the DS hurt the Empire.

The destruction of Alderaan rallied beings to the Rebel's cause and eroded support for the Empire, even causing a large number of Alderaanians in the Imperial Military to defect. I won't argue it was a big mistake (and I definitely will not argue that it was an evil act, unlike some people). Meanwhile, Death Star II was going to be a bigger, badder, improved version of the weapon and it would have been far more daunting had it been completed and the Emperor's arrogance not clouded his judgment.

If the Rebellion was still a centralized thing with just a few huge supporters, it might make sense to try again.... but building lts of ships and blockadeing the planets would still be better. Unless you can't trust the crews! The grassroots rebellion might count there more than it would with a DS.

But anyway what I'm saying is a huge Death Star is a single point of failure that can only handle one problem at a time, and really only has one solution to it - blow up the whole fucking thing. If the Rebellion was well distibuted, this couldn't possibly work. One ship just doesn't make sense against hundreds or thousands of bases.

I go back to my earlier point that the Death Star was more for terrorizing populations and overpowering planetary defenses than it was going to be for fighting the rebellion directly. "Fear will keep the local systems in line, fear of this battlestation." Had the rebels failed at Yavin 4, I think perception would have been quite different. That the Death Star was destroyed showed that the Rebellion could actually fight the Empire and had a hope of being victorious.

[StarSword]

Han Solo, former officer of the Imperial navy who abandoned his comission after freeing a Wookiee slave? Naaaaaaaw.

Understatement of the century, that. He didn't "abandon his commission," he was dishonorably discharged from it. In book 2 of the Han Solo Trilogy (I forget the title), he recalls his ceremonial defrocking. Later he helped fend off an attempted Imperial BDZ of Nar Shaddaa. He was very definitely anti-Empire.

'Course, he wasn't exactly pro-Rebel, either, though that's mostly because he (and Lando and a number of other smugglers, for that matter) got burned by the Rebellion during the raid on Ylesia in book 3. (That's partly why he starts out so cynical: the Rebel leader during said raid was his ex-girlfriend Bria Tharen.)

As far as not being able to trust crews, that does have precedent. Many of the Rebels' top people, from Crix Madine to Tycho Celchu, were Imperial defectors. Even within Death Squadron, Captain Needa of the Avenger was reputed to have Rebel sympathies in Wedge's Gamble, which was partly why Vader executed him for losing the Falcon, and why one of his relatives was stuck aboard one of Coruscant's orbital mirrors.

As for the Death Star itself, that fits squarely into the Tarkin Doctrine of rule by fear. Hence the destruction of such a prominent world as Alderaan, quite apart from it offering succor to the Rebellion.

[Darth Fanboy]

Starsword I am confused which side was Tarkin on? I thought he was in charge of Echo Base?

[The Romulan Republic]

Starsword I am confused which side was Tarkin on? I thought he was in charge of Echo Base?

Tarkin was the main Imperial official in Episode IV other than Vader. He's the one who commands the Death Star and orders the destruction of Alderan.

[Darth Tedious]

Rieekan was the Rebel leader at Hoth.

Re whether Tarkin had already decided to blow up Alderaan:
Indeed he had.

I just had a leaf through Death Star, and found this:

"I think it's time we demonstrated the full power of this station." He looked back at his officer. "Set your course for Alderaan."
The man mumbled something and left, but Tarkin was already thinking ahead. If Princess Leia Organa was a thorn in the Empire's side, then Alderaan was a forest of thorns.
Well, it was time to purge that forest. With fire.

I also came across an amazing tidbit of information, but I'll make a seperate thread about that a little later in the evening, after the kidilinks are put to bed. We can all have a good laugh over it, it'll be a scream.

[Thanas]

Darth Tedious, please be less of an obvious troll target.

Trolls, please stop feeding Darth Tedious with obvious troll questions you all know the answers to.