I'm a little surprised with the Trekkie debators...

[TrekWarsie]

I know that they don't like the canonization of the E2ICS, but I don't know why they may think that it's the end of the world for them. They do have evidence of high gigaton weapons in Trek via the DS9 episode "The Die is Cast." I saw some torpedo explosions that may have been teraton ranges, though I'm not sure about that since I am not an expert at math, far from it, and I'm not good at making base calcs just from screenshots. As of yet, though, no major Trek debator has brought that into the picture. I have seen mention of it from people who have not taken any side in the debate, however. This was just an observation on my part.

[Master of Ossus]

TDiC has been discussed endlessly. The explosions were not nearly as powerful as you are claiming, seeing as how the effects of the blasts dissipated incredibly rapidly. We know from other episodes that the atmosphere on the Founder homeworld is inhabitable by humans, showing that its atmosphere must be relatively similar with that of Earth. We further know that the fleet was being sent false sensor readings, and that the visuals did not remotely match the analysis that the sensors were showing of the planet.

[YT300000]

How can 30% of a planet be burned off, with zero visual evidence?

[Howedar]

Even if we are as kind to Trek as possible, we are left with two options.

Trek weapons are much weaker than they are implied to be.
Trek weapons are all heavily NDF (the 30% figure is accurate) but are not very powerful, as seen by the visuals.

High-power calcs cannot be derived from TDiC.

[TurboPhaser]

I know that they don't like the canonization of the E2ICS, but I don't know why they may think that it's the end of the world for them. They do have evidence of high gigaton weapons in Trek via the DS9 episode "The Die is Cast." I saw some torpedo explosions that may have been teraton ranges, though I'm not sure about that since I am not an expert at math, far from it, and I'm not good at making base calcs just from screenshots. As of yet, though, no major Trek debator has brought that into the picture. I have seen mention of it from people who have not taken any side in the debate, however. This was just an observation on my part.

Could you provide soem episode names where you think you saw Teraton explosions?

[TrekWarsie]

In TDiC, a Romulan Photon Torpedo (the first one to hit the planet, I think) creates an explosion that looked like it could take out a large portion of the East Coast of the U.S. And I do know some counter-arguments that the Trekkies could use even if 30% of the whole planet's crust was not destroyed in the visuals, but they never seem to use them, which is surprising since it may be the only thing that could stand up against the E2ICS. That's why it's so surprising to someone like me when I watch these debates.

[TurboPhaser]

Well, if what was seen is accurate, and I seem to remember what you saw, it looks like (at the very least The Romulans) they can make big ass weapons in the Trek Galaxy. If them torps were Tera or Gigaton, they would be effective against the often used ISD.

[Darth Servo]

In TDiC, a Romulan Photon Torpedo (the first one to hit the planet, I think) creates an explosion that looked like it could take out a large portion of the East Coast of the U.S.

Wrong. You saw some kind of wierd atmospheric phenomena that did precisely SQUAT to the ground underneath it.

And I do know some counter-arguments that the Trekkies could use even if 30% of the whole planet's crust was not destroyed in the visuals, but they never seem to use them, which is surprising since it may be the only thing that could stand up against the E2ICS. That's why it's so surprising to someone like me when I watch these debates.

http://h4h.com/louis/bust.html#the%20die%20is%20cast

[seanrobertson]

Wrong. You saw some kind of wierd atmospheric phenomena that did precisely SQUAT to the ground underneath it.

At least, not in the sense that it created a huge fireball or the like...

I think it probably did have significant effect on the ground, but not through direct energy transfer. Years ago, my guess was that they were some kind of subspace weapons given the crazy rate at which those "blast waves" expanded. (It also bears some semblance to disruption of some Trek holograms, but the Dominion never played with holography; the planet's condition itself couldn't have been an illusion from established canon.)

The equivalent effects of this bombardment would be fairly impressive--all life would likely be killed several times over--but in no way, shape, or form can "TDIC" be used to support GIGATON-class explosions.

Though the shot cuts away from the bombardment rather rapidly, it appears that we weren't even seeing megaton-scale detonations (which would glow brightly for a long time).

We should've seen something akin to a bright glow, somewhere; even many sub-kiloton events can be seen from orbit, after all (e.g., huge forest fires). The lack of fireballs is more reason to think they were using bizarre treknobabble torpedoes.

[TurboPhaser]

Cant you calculate the yields for the weapons in TDiC? I mean they said how long it would take for the crust and mantle to be destroyed.

IIRC, it wasnt very long. 3 Hours for something. That aint bad for only about 20 ships to do that to an entire planet.

If anything supports Gigaton blasts in Trek, its 'Skin of Evil' TNG. We clearly see a large explosion on the surface from a torpedo from orbit.

There was no atmospheric distortions, the explosion was very obvious. Not a prick of light, but a clear explosion.

Thats a big yield.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

If anything supports Gigaton blasts in Trek, its 'Skin of Evil' TNG. We clearly see a large explosion on the surface from a torpedo from orbit.

Can you explain why this supposed gigaton blast created a red fireball while mere megaton explosions create white fireballs?

[Darth Servo]

Cant you calculate the yields for the weapons in TDiC? I mean they said how long it would take for the crust and mantle to be destroyed.

Define 'destroy'. Vaporized? Broken up into fragments? 'Transitioned out of the continum' or other treknobabble? Disappear into thin air?

IIRC, it wasnt very long. 3 Hours for something. That aint bad for only about 20 ships to do that to an entire planet.

1 hour for the crust. 5 hours for the mantle according to the breifing. Of course those numbers could have been fed to the Roms/Cardies by the dominion.

If anything supports Gigaton blasts in Trek, its 'Skin of Evil' TNG. We clearly see a large explosion on the surface from a torpedo from orbit.

There was no atmospheric distortions, the explosion was very obvious. Not a prick of light, but a clear explosion.

Thats a big yield.

A big yield (megaton+) WOULD produce atmospheric distortions and would last significantly longer than the second or two that the SOE explosion did.

[YT300000]

I haven't seen ST 5 in a while (lucky me), but a photorp hit the ground 4 metres away from Kirk and he was unharmed, right?

So how much could weapons tech have progressed in under a century?

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

I haven't seen ST 5 in a while (lucky me), but a photorp hit the ground 4 metres away from Kirk and he was unharmed, right?

So how much could weapons tech have progressed in under a century?

IIRC, that torp didn't hit the surface, but went down some kind of shaft into an underground area. Still, that should've caused a good bit of upheaval on the surface. Another "custom yield" example?

Of course, I personally wouldn't use ST5 in debate, because this is also the film where the E-A got to the "Center of the Galaxy" in under an hour. (They must have been injecting Espresso double-shots into the warp core that day. )

[seanrobertson]

Cant you calculate the yields for the weapons in TDiC? I mean they said how long it would take for the crust and mantle to be destroyed.

"Computer analysis indicates that the planet's crust will be destroyed within one hour; and the mantle, within five"--"Col. Lovok" changeling.

If they were using DET weapons, we could figure this out, yes. Since they weren't, the best we could do is maybe come up with an "equivalent firepower."

But that's really impossible to nail down since we don't know what "destroy" must entail in this case. I'd say it'd kill all life, but what they mean by "destroying" the crust and upper mantle is anyone's guess.

IIRC, it wasnt very long. 3 Hours for something. That aint bad for only about 20 ships to do that to an entire planet.

I agree. It's pretty impressive. But it's not DET, as we can see from the "ripples" in the atmosphere. So we can't derive warhead yields.

We've gotta go to the asteroid incidents for something like that, IMO.

If anything supports Gigaton blasts in Trek, its 'Skin of Evil' TNG. We clearly see a large explosion on the surface from a torpedo from orbit.

There was no atmospheric distortions, the explosion was very obvious. Not a prick of light, but a clear explosion.

Thats a big yield.

The trouble is, it dissipated very, VERY quickly.

In an atmosphere, a megaton-class explosion will glow brightly for over a minute, IIRC. Lord Mike could tell ya about this in better detail than I.

In "light" of this (hahahaha...ugh), the explosion we saw in "Skin of Evil" was probably not greater than a few kilotons.

[seanrobertson]

IIRC, that torp didn't hit the surface, but went down some kind of shaft into an underground area. Still, that should've caused a good bit of upheaval on the surface. Another "custom yield" example?

IMO, yes

The explosion we saw was less than what a cruise missile would do. We know from other sources that photorps *can* do significantly better than that, but said example has been the bane of Trekkies ever since I joined the vs. community in 1997

Of course, I personally wouldn't use ST5 in debate, because this is also the film where the E-A got to the "Center of the Galaxy" in under an hour. (They must have been injecting Espresso double-shots into the warp core that day. )

Yeah. The tech guys for that film were really asleep at the wheel.

My guess is that the center of the galaxy was entirely figurative. The only other option I see is to just strike that one from the records, which my approach does not allow me to do. (Palpatine's son "Triclops," OTOH...mwahahahaha!)

[Ted C]

If anything supports Gigaton blasts in Trek, its 'Skin of Evil' TNG. We clearly see a large explosion on the surface from a torpedo from orbit.

The trouble is, it dissipated very, VERY quickly.

In an atmosphere, a megaton-class explosion will glow brightly for over a minute, IIRC. Lord Mike could tell ya about this in better detail than I.

In "light" of this (hahahaha...ugh), the explosion we saw in "Skin of Evil" was probably not greater than a few kilotons.

"Skin of Evil" supports nothing of the sort. For starter's, people who try to scale that explosion to gigaton-level yield are trying to use the explosive effects formulas from the Nuclear Weapons FAQ. The problem is that those formulas are based on the radii at which certain damage effects become common. Since we have no idea what criteria the Enterprise's sensors might have been using to generate the screen image, we can't conclude that those formulas are applicable.

For another, Trekkies trying to generate a multi-gigaton yield use the blast damage formula from the FAQ. The image seen on the screen expanded to full size in a second, more or less, but the blast from a detonation would have taken several minutes to develop, since the blast propagates at the speed of sound. The Enterprise's sensors must have shown the heat wave from the bomb, if anything, since the atmosphere is pretty transparent to infra-red, so the heat would have spread at lightspeed. The FAQ formula for heat damage effects does not generate multi-gigaton yields; it indicates hundreds of megatons at most.

"Skin of Evil" doesn't provide any reliable information on photon torpedo yield, and people who try to use it don't even apply the formulas correctly.

[seanrobertson]

"Skin of Evil" doesn't provide any reliable information on photon torpedo yield, and people who try to use it don't even apply the formulas correctly.

Yeah.

That's not to mention the fact that the photorp hit a shuttlecraft.

Shuttles don't typically carry massive quantities of antimatter--Worf and Ezri Dax's Runabout blew up in an atmosphere once in DS9's "Final Chapter," and the explosion was pretty unspectacular--but it wasn't as if the photorp just hit an inert target, either.

It doesn't matter in the scheme of things, for the reasons you noted, but it remains yet another reason why that episode doesn't point to X photorp yield.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

My guess is that the center of the galaxy was entirely figurative.

That depends -- were there any instances of displays showing a map naming the "Center of the Galxy" and E-A's relative position or flight path? If not, then we can surmise that it's a wildly inaccurate colloquialism. If there are screenshots to back the dialogue, though, we have to assume the writers were having a stroke of Flash Gordon's Syndrome.

The only other option I see is to just strike that one from the records, which my approach does not allow me to do. (Palpatine's son "Triclops," OTOH...mwahahahaha!)

"Triclops"...?

[YT300000]

"Triclops"...?

You don't want to know.

[The Silence and I]

1) I once scaled the Skin of Evil... thing ... to about 480 KM in diameter. If propagation was light speed it would take ~0.0016 sec. to expand to full size, not the ~1 sec. seen (note, even if I am off in my scaling it makes no difference). So sensor readings of the heat wave are not likely.
2) As it was somewhere in the hundreds of KM in size it is unlikely to be mere KT, but as people have said, the blast from a DET weapon cannot move as quickly as it did. It also was not very bright, and was brief so this is not likely a huge explosion, and does not seem to be conventional
3) The intent of the shot was to destroy the shuttle, destroying Armus was never discussed as an intent (or perhaps as a possibility...can you destroy evil?) so multi-terra tons of gamma radiation would be redundant
4) Photon torpedos can burrow into the ground, implying they may be able to use the necessary deflector dish to channel power and blast a hole in the ground.

SO,

A) The torpedo detonated in space, powering the dish with a burst of energy targeted at the shuttle, causing pin-point obliteration of the shuttle. The ship's sensors showed us the rapidly expanding debris cloud (Electronically dimmed, of course) from the vaporised torpedo casing--in space it ought to be able to expand somewhat faster than in atmosphere...I think. And Vagra II's thick cloud cover would hide the damage below.
B) The torpedo bored its way below the surface of Vagra II, perhaps obliterating the shuttle as it did so, then detonated for good measure. The ship's sensors showed us the underground shockwave's extent within a set intensity (The wave would continue on, but grow less intense, after a point the sensor would stop displaying it). I don't know the numbers very well, but I think shockwaves in solid rock are fast enough to explain the propagation. This explanation should work with a great number of yields.

[The Silence and I]

Curse the lack of Edit!!

I meant to include a disclamer:

C) Any explaination I failed to see, however obvious or obscure

[TurboPhaser]

Ok, all very interesting, but I still havent read a solid, plausible explanation for why the fireball was seen so clearly from orbit.

A) The torpedo detonated in space, powering the dish with a burst of energy targeted at the shuttle, causing pin-point obliteration of the shuttle. The ship's sensors showed us the rapidly expanding debris cloud (Electronically dimmed, of course) from the vaporised torpedo casing--in space it ought to be able to expand somewhat faster than in atmosphere...I think. And Vagra II's thick cloud cover would hide the damage below.
B) The torpedo bored its way below the surface of Vagra II, perhaps obliterating the shuttle as it did so, then detonated for good measure. The ship's sensors showed us the underground shockwave's extent within a set intensity (The wave would continue on, but grow less intense, after a point the sensor would stop displaying it). I don't know the numbers very well, but I think shockwaves in solid rock are fast enough to explain the propagation. This explanation should work with a great number of yields.

Nice theory. But:

No visual or dialouge to support it.
Timing is a bit off, the torp flew towards the planet and detonated almost instantly as it passed through the atmosphere. There wasnt enough time for it to burrow a far way down before exploding.

[Vexx]

It also was not very bright, and was brief so this is not likely a huge explosion, and does not seem to be conventional

I don't think M/AM warheads could even qualify as "conventional".

You don't necessarily need a massive fireball or bright light to cause massive destruction. Those seismic torpedoes in AoTC didn't make any particularly huge fireballs IIRC and they managed to shatter asteroids. So, you could have weapons with little or no "flash" that cause a lot of destruction, or vice versa.

[Darth Servo]

It also was not very bright, and was brief so this is not likely a huge explosion, and does not seem to be conventional

I don't think M/AM warheads could even qualify as "conventional".

You don't necessarily need a massive fireball or bright light to cause massive destruction.

You need a lot of energy and in an atmoshpere, a large release of energy WILL create a bright flast and white fireball. It doesn't matter if the energy comes from M/AM, nuclear fission or chemical combusiont.

Those seismic torpedoes in AoTC didn't make any particularly huge fireballs IIRC and they managed to shatter asteroids.

How can you have a fireball in the vacuum of space? Don't compare apples and oranges. A large explosion in atmosphere will look very different than one in outer space.