White Star vs Defiant

[seanrobertson]

The mars excuse to underpower the WS is not valid, the Whitestar was keeping it's Jump Engines at full power and had to keep it's fire power nice and low so that the energy wouldn't feed back, there is air on mars, and superheating it would be a bad thing to a flying craft. It was pulling it's punches.

Did I say it was a valid way to derive the WS's firepower?

I don't think it is, same as I think that many of the lowest
Trek figures don't make sense either.

Also the ISA forces attacking Centarui Prime were only hitting military targets. And the whitestar was not attacking at that time so one cannot gleam information from that.

No, but the WSs aren't orders of magnitude stronger or weaker than
those ships.

Furthermore, even if they were striking military targets...so what?
That's a red herring. We're talking about the damage they
were doing (or lack thereof). I don't hold that against Narn weapons,
as I'm sure they're at least into the dozens of terawatts range.
Maybe they were at the periphery of their effective firing range
(10,000 km for ships in "LoTR") or a number of other things.

But you missed my point. If someone whips out an example that doesn't
really make sense in light of the "bulk" of evidence in Star Trek,
and it is used to claim Trek weapons and shields are sub-kiloton
or what-have-you, I can just as easily employ the same method
against them by citing many examples of even poorer B5
firepower; e.g., 200 MW pulse cannons.

I do not because that's context-dropping. It doesn't yield a
realistic understanding of things in B5 or Trek.

Though one Whitestar and two heavy narn beams were enough to kill a Shadow ship, that could not defend itself due to Lyta Alexander.

Well, to nitpick, the ship did have its "energy diffusers" active while it was attacked...

And sean could you please only hit enter after you finish a paragraph, and not when you get to the end of the post box, the margins you set are making the pages longer than they need to be.

I haven't set any margins, but yes, I'll try that. I know it's annoying--my apologies. I didn't know how to fix it. I'll try to start with my next post...I think I already slipped up in this one a few times (d'oH).

[The Silence and I]

Connor MacLeod wrote:

Ah, buit what does it matter if the shields are so sucky they can be dropped in the case of a GW-level particle beam (as we saw with the E-D?) Minbari fighters are capable of hundreds of GW to a few TW of firepower (as stated before) - Shadow Fighters would be at least comparable to this. And as we've seen repeatedly in the series (such as War without end) - the White Star can easily shrug of fighter-scale attacks with little to no damage.

See, maybe you should actually provide some "numbers" to back that statement up, rather than keeping your head up your ass and pretending
that you haven't been disproven.

Come on! Have you ever watched TNG? Quoting the show for power figures or total energy is, well. Misinformation. Survivors would have you think the E-D's total shield protection is worth 800 GW. Ok, that's just fine. Then A Matter of Time tells us the E-D can just barely control phaser output by 60 GW. All of 7.5% of the total shield strength from Survivors. If you are oing by dialog, then lets reference TOS for a moment. The E-nil could control phaser output by as little as 1% in the Ultimate Computer. If this applies to a ship even more heavily designed for reseach, then the E-D should have phasers capable of 6 TW, all of 750% of the shield figures from Survivors. In the In Conundrum, the large star base was protected by a multi KW shield!!! There is no point to such a shield!! The dialog must be in error most serious. Riker states a single PhoTorp should take it out, and my god it better have been able to if dialog numbers are to be believed
Or what about the episode where Riker says a 4/5(?) GW generator can power a small phaser bank. If that is so, then the E-D's main phasers have 1,200 times the out put of such a device, going off of A Matter of Time and The Ultimate Computer. Then there is the episode Unification, parts 1/2(?), where the E-D encounters a private craft said to carry weapons equal to the E-D's. 5 or 6 shots reduced the E-D's shields to 16% before Riker finally pasted the little thing. If this is aken at face value, then the E-D has shields that make Survivors look pathetic. See a pattern? Trek firepower dialog is not to be taken at face value without examining all angles. Ever.

[seanrobertson]

Come on! Have you ever watched TNG? Quoting the show for power figures or total energy is, well. Misinformation. Survivors would have you think the E-D's total shield protection is worth 800 GW. Ok, that's just fine.

Then what is the problem?

I don't think I'd go so far as to say it's misinformation.

As I mentioned in my exchange with Brian, I think the "Survivors" quotation indicates that the effects of the Husnock weapon are about the equivalent of 400 GW of phaser energy. As he pointed out, in "Who Watches the Watchers," a 4.2 GW fusion reactor is enough to power a "small phaser bank"; even if we're talking about a very small bank, that's probably enough to overwhelm the shields should 100 such weapons strike them at once.

Note, however, that I disagree with the idea that 400 GW from *any* source would knock the shields out. Phasers and similar weapons are special; their effects on shields, for whatever reason, are comparable to kiloton-range photon torpedoes (though where exactly the torpedoes fall in that range is subject to debate...I tend to think, for reasons already noted, that it's in the low hundreds of kT/torpedo, but someone could make the case that they're only a few kT apiece and probably cite convincing support for as much).

Then A Matter of Time tells us the E-D can just barely control phaser output by 60 GW. All of 7.5% of the total shield strength from Survivors.

Needless to say, if a mere 60 GW phaser was directed at the shields for 6.5 seconds it could have the same effect as the Husnock weapon. Thus, while it is tempting to conclude phasers' initial output is in the low TW range this might not necessarily be the case.

Also, IIRC, LaForge spent some time working on the phasers in that episode to increase their output.

Indeed, this turned out to be the case. From the script:

GEORDI: Keep the phasers on active surge control, Worf. We're only going to have one shot at this.
...
DATA: After an eight point three second burst from the dish, we will discharge all EPS taps through the phasers.
(the Enterprise fires a beam from its deflector dish into the atmosphere, then fires phasers to start the reaction, then absorbs the resulting blue cloud, turns 180 degrees, and shoots it out into space).

Since this blast involved all of the EPS taps it's probably significantly more powerful than a standard phaser discharge--hence the reason 60 GW is a small percentage of the total output in this episode.

If you are oing by dialog, then lets reference TOS for a moment. The E-nil could control phaser output by as little as 1% in the Ultimate Computer. If this applies to a ship even more heavily designed for reseach, then the E-D should have phasers capable of 6 TW, all of 750% of the shield figures from Survivors. In the In Conundrum, the large star base was protected by a multi KW shield!!! There is no point to such a shield!! The dialog must be in error most serious.

Well, I partly agree here...I don't know that the GCS should necessarily have a greater control over how well it vary phaser power. It would be a non sequitur to conclude as much simply because it is designed with more exploratory reasons in mind than the Constitution

Is it possible that phasers do have a "raw power" of a few terawatts? Maybe, though that is more than the fusion reactors could provide. It would require warp power being fed to the weapons, something we do not hear about very often until later in TNG, then in DS9 and VGR. Even *then* it is not, I repeat not, standard operating procedure...otherwise, Sisko, Janeway, etc. would not have to specifically order it. It was fairly standard in TOS and TMP, at least, but they probably had weaker fusion reactors that could not handle the burden of powering most of the ship's systems (not to mention less powerful M/AM drives).

WRT the Lysian CC's shields, I agree kW shielding is flat-out STUPID.
A stereo system could blow through that if its power was channeled
into a gun. Any handgun would take care of that, too.

I think what the figure denotes is the shield's output, not what it can handle. Shields' power output does not translate to what they can withstand. Indeed, a single Lysian destroyer had a disruptor capable of firing a few megajoules (tee-hee!); if kilowattage was all the shields could stand up to you'd think the Lysians' opponents, who were supposedly their equals, could blast the CC into oblivion.

If shield output is proportionate to the amount of energy it can field, the command center could probably withstand the equivalent of high megawatt-ranged blasts or something similar. Consider that a Federation starship like Jenolan has a shield output somewhere in the GW range, as evident by Scotty's effort to "get a few extra gigawatts out of these babies [shield generators]." Yet it could presumably orbit a star for awhile, too, so over time it would have to cope with at least hundreds of terajoules.

I do not think that's a very big "if" but it's a double-edged sword for Trekkies: on the one hand, the shield output itself isn't damning; but on the other, it is unlikely that the shield can withstand many millions of times its own operating power.

Riker states a single PhoTorp should take it out, and my god it better have been able to if dialog numbers are to be believed
Or what about the episode where Riker says a 4/5(?) GW generator can power a small phaser bank. If that is so, then the E-D's main phasers have 1,200 times the out put of such a device, going off of A Matter of Time and The Ultimate Computer.

How do we know that? The E-D's dorsal saucer array is huge, but we do not know how much bigger it is than a "small phaser bank." Phaser "banks" need not refer to single emitters; e.g., Worf's statement in "Conundrum" that the E-D had "ten phaser banks."

For all we know, the small phaser might be the type mounted on a Runabout or it could just as easily be equal to one of the E-D's smaller phaser strips, which are definitely not hundreds of times smaller than the biggest array on the ship.

Then there is the episode Unification, parts 1/2(?), where the E-D encounters a private craft said to carry weapons equal to the E-D's. 5 or 6 shots reduced the E-D's shields to 16% before Riker finally pasted the little thing. If this is aken at face value, then the E-D has shields that make Survivors look pathetic. See a pattern? Trek firepower dialog is not to be taken at face value without examining all angles. Ever.

Riker waited until the shields were THAT low to fire back? My God...he
IS an idiot! I would court-martial him for gross negligence for pulling that.

I fail to see, however, why 5-6 shots means the firepower is greater than dialogue has suggested.

I do mostly agree about taking a close look at dialogue, hence Michael's NDF theory. Phasers can do a lot with a little, but there are definite limits. And those limits are almost certainly much lower than what the TMs suggests, for torpedoes at least. If a photorp could really release around 40 megatons as those texts suggest, it is likely the "Pegasus" asteroid could have been blown away with a single torpedo. At most, maybe *two*.

[Connor MacLeod]

The mars excuse to underpower the WS is not valid, the Whitestar was keeping it's Jump Engines at full power and had to keep it's fire power nice and low so that the energy wouldn't feed back, there is air on mars, and superheating it would be a bad thing to a flying craft. It was pulling it's punches.

I dont recall any of this being stated in Endgame. Are you making this up?

Also the ISA forces attacking Centarui Prime were only hitting military targets.

Again, I do not recall this being stated.

And the whitestar was not attacking at that time so one cannot gleam information from that. Though one Whitestar and two heavy narn beams were enough to kill a Shadow ship, that could not defend itself due to Lyta Alexander.

ITs not that different. Two White Star's and one NHC were sufficient to shatter a battlecrab into chunks after 10-15 seconds of combined fire. And they were diffusing at the time.

[Connor MacLeod]

I have to respectfully disagree here...you can definitely cook
up some figures that might Trek and Babylon 5 ships' firepower
look bad (Narn-Drazi bombardment of Centauri Prime, a
WS's attack on Mars, ST:FC), but the consistent set is what
we're really after.

Syntax sort of hit on these (Although the reasons he stated sound fishy to me.) The point is we have prior incidents of fairly high firepower (and some baselines for most races from Ted C - want me to drag his calcs into this? )

You might as well mention "War Zone" with the pathetic T-bolt firepower if you're going to argue this, or mention the Black Star incident (everyone else is ) In regards to the attack on Mars in endgame - I can point out to you that Sheridan at that point had been repeatedly concerned about NOT inflicting massive civilian/military casualities if it could be avoided?

As for the Narn-Centauri bombardment - Its not applicable to the White Star (which reputedly can engage even the largest destroyers or dreadnaughts among the YR with respectable chances of winning) - but I agree, we're probably nto talking many orders of magnitude difference (at most, 1 or 2) White Stars are very powerful for their size remember

As for the bombarmdent itself, its really hard to quanitfy beyond a rough "order of magnitude" guessimate. We can say what it ISN'T (global extinction event, or even continent/nation-destroying firepower) as well as numbers and timeframe (at a minimum they had half a dozen to a dozen Narn Cruisers - maybe 2-3 times that many Drazi warships as well as numerous Drazi fighters - but this was also supposed to be 30% of both the Narn and Drazi fleets - even at the minimum it implies they should have dozens, possibly even a few hundred - warships there - but also remember that their ships are much smaller than full fledged Destroyers or Dreadnaughts) - I can guess the timeframe was less than a day - but can't say for sure.

From what I recall of the bombardment, we only ever saw pulse cannon fire hit (no beams or missiles or whatnot) - wh ich makes it harder to explain - since Drazi fighters were firing, they may very well have been weaker. And as well, particle weapons in an atmosphere will greatly inhibit their effects (the particles in the beam are constantly impacting/interacting with the atmosphere - this bleeds energy into the enviroment and such.) - as you said, their weapons ( or at least some kinds) degrade with distance. Its not inconceivable those were 10% power shots (they could easily be 10,000 km away - which is about mid-orbit for an Earthlike planet - GEostationary is ~36,000 km for an Earthlike planet). And the fact we see only fragments of the battle complicates matters. Nevertheless, it does suggest that their firepower is not tremendous (the way the GE is)

I also add to the list both ACTA (the Main gun's firepower rating at BEST is maybe a few hundred megatons for total vaporization of said asteroid - which is blatantly generous. And this is the BEST that any YR ship acn manage, very likely - including the Minbari) and Z'ha' dum (the use of 2 500 megaton nukes which had to be dropped onto Z'ha'dum suggests orbital bombardment ability would be less effective - and I remind you they had anywhere from half a minute to several minutes to do this without a response to achieve this in.)

That might sound like an oxymoron when dealing with Trek,
but I don't actually think portrayal of firepower is *that* inconsistent,
even including "The Die Is Cast."

I'm not neccesarily saying it is. I'm merely pointing out that wanking out the upper limits on the Trek side does not guarantee victory - because I Can play with numbers just as well as they can - and do so in a more reasonable manner If they want to use reasonable upper limits, then so will I.

If it was inconsistent, I wouldn't have been able to cite several
examples to support the hundred kT photorp (and commensurate
shield resistance thereto) idea.

True. but as I recall, most of those examples are also something of upper limits (like Pegasus). Its possible actual firepower lies close to the upper end - but again the true could be said of B5 (using the 12,500 TW upper limit for the White Star)

The values I am using for both trek and B5 are partly based on Ted C's estimates (which tend to go GW-TW range for firepower) and my own (as well as calcs like PEgasus) - as well as things You, Brian, Mike, and ASVS'ers have mentioned (whom in my own totally subjective opinion, are "reliable.)

In Trek's case I'm also operating on the known Enterprise figures (500 GW phasers - and assuming torpedoes are an order of magnitude more powerful in an effective sense - in other words - how much energy they can possibly deliver to the target - rather than entire yield.) I further modify the figures by 2 orders of magnitude to account for "modern" advances - I believe there's less than a thousand years of difference between the Enterprise Federation and the TNG federation. (Also I'm ignoring NDF effects - I'm talking strictly physical firepower) - or in other words 50 TW phasers (or 500 TW at "boosted" levels) and maybe ~120 kiloton torpedoes (say maybe two or three times that for "total" yield - remember that I'm assuming that the actual figure applies to energy delivered to the target, not including the
"wasted" energy.)

That's meant to be more or less an "order of magnitude" estimate of capabilities rather than a "direct" value - a guesstimate if you will. I tend to use several of Brian's past calcs (As well as present) for a guesstimate of capabilities as well.

However, I am taking what you're saying a bit out of context,
Adam...you're responding to someone who's citing the TM
figures (which I feel are up to 50-100x too high in the case of
quantum torpedoes). In that case, you are right.

I'm simply trying to keep it consistent. If the Trek side wants to use high end - I'm perfectly willing to toss in B5 high end. And I'm also pointing out that they DO have lower end calcs that suggest far lower firepower.
We could consider the Night Terrors/Insurrection examlples (ST: V comes to mind, as does the Borg Bombardment in FC) rough guestimates (order of magnitude estimates rather than strict values) to suggest where actual values lay.

Against metal, phasers can be *somewhat* effective...depends
entirely on the metal. It appears that phasers daamage tritanium/duranium hulls at a rate roughly consistent with their
actual output (assuming phasers are now roughly up to one
terawatt or so). Maybe a little moreso. Hard to tell.

I'm not saying totally ineffective (again, I initially belived they might be the better source of damage than any th ermal/kinetic effects t he weapon might impart) - but I don't think the White Star is liable to suffer any more damage than most Fed ships do from phaser fire.

I also don't fully agree that Defiant has terrible accuracy.
It's not going to be good enough to consistently nail WS, however,
unless proximity detonation photorps are used.

accuracy is going to depend on range and EW - I suspect that MOST high accuracyt situations are going to require closer ranges (something on the order of kms-tens of km) - which is going to be neccessary anyhow, given Minbari stealth (IIRC the Picard Manuver's effectiveness more or less demonstrated subspace sensors aren't reliable enough to rely on solely for targeting purposes - would subspace sensors even pick up a White Star, since subspace tech isnt known in B5?)

Again, I dont know how effective torps will be at close range - don't federation starships risk "backblast" damage from close-range torp detonations?

Arguably, th is is where the warp drive can benefit the Defiant, although I think the WS "MAY" have an acceleration advantage (although going full out acceleration to "o pen the distance" will negate its ability to manuver effectively. )

I can still see it going either way, even if I do slightly favor
Defiant for her offensive/defensive strength.

Obviously, I'm favoring the White Star

[Connor MacLeod]

<snip most of the firepower value - no argument here>

For example, how would torpedoes yielding gigajoules apiece, or no
more than ~750 GJ for the entire inventory (overestimate), do any damage to the asteroid in "Pegasus"? Riker might be inept, but he's fired
photon torpedoes before. To think he's off by over five orders
of magnitude stretches the incompetence dismissal to the extreme.

If we assume the asteroid itself was 75% hollow (probable overestimate; the entrance into the one chasm we saw barely gave enough clearance for the E-D to slip inside), it would have a volume slightly greater
than a 2690m wide, solid asteroid. To blow that apart, they'd need
19.5 megatons.

Even if all 250 torpedoes were used (perhaps greater than Riker's
expectation of "most of our photon torpedoes), that's still 78 kilotons/torpedo.

I can accept that as effective Defiant firepower values - as I already said, that sits pretty well with my "order of magnitude" estimates doing a somewhat arbitrary scaleup of Enterprise to TNG-era firepower (50 TW phasers, 500 TJ photorps in terms of what they can potentially deliver - IE 50% of max yield). I'm merely establishing that the lower end values ARE there to debunk the techno-wank assumptions.

<snip more argument - agian no complaints>

In "Q Who?" those torpedoes exploded about 5 kilometers from the E-D; thus, with a frontal area of no more than ~60,000 m^2, a 5 GJ torpedo
would strike the ship with almost one megajoule total!
Even a 500 GJ torpedo would only deliver 95 MJ at that range.
That wouldn't even vaporize one adult male, and it's about
600 times less energy than you'd need to vaporize a single
cubic meter of iron. Hand phasers can do that (well, not the iron,
but the "vaporizing people" thing).

Again, no problem. Most comparisons of effective particle beam/EM firepower seem to imply a GJ-level intensity should be sufficient to affect Federation ships, so kiloton-level warheads for photorps and Q-torps aren't unreasonable.

We know that a quarter kiloton device sitting on the NX-01's
hull blew out a nice chunk of her but certainly didn't result
in destruction (unfortunately, though I would've gotten Hoshi
and T'Pol off the ship first, so long as I could gag T'Pol to not
hear her bullshit. Oh, and Porthos. Gotta get Porthos). So
the ship was probably struck with about 500 GJ, itself. Surely
the E-D could withstand more.

Just how big a chunk is "a nice chunk?" approximately 10% of the overall ship's mass? 20%?

<snip more firepower discussion - no argument>

Regardless, it's pretty conclusive IMO. I waver in my understanding
of Trek as consistent, since superficially it's definitely NOT. But with
a little work--reasonable work--the picture is relatively clear; i.e.,
Federation ships like Defiant should be on a rough par with
White Stars and bigger Federation capships should be a match
for Minbari Warcruisers. Each side probably holds advantages...torpedoes
would probably be the most powerful weapon fielded, whereas Minbari
beam weapons would be better overall than phasers. And the stealth
is potentially the entire debate, though the Federation ships do have
better defensive strength, which could afford them a little more time
to fight back and score hits.

Torpedoes are no doubt more effective, but as I said, there are definite problems to employing them on the Fed side - especially since they manage rather paltry volleys and they dont seem to employ much in the way of speed - I can easily see a Minbari cruiser picking off a spread of torps from the Enterprise - I could easily see the White Star doing it to the Defiant as well (which never seems to launch more than a couple torps at any one time, IIRC)

As for Stealth - again, since the Picard Manuver seems to establish that EM sensors are required to effectively target a ship, this suggests that the stealth system on the WS (or War Cruisers) should be able to significantly impair Fed targeting, requiring closer range engagements (which seem to be where their accuracy is the best, anyhow - at least in the Defiant's case ). Stealth may also make tracking the WS/War Cruiser difficult - so we go with proximity detonations.

I'm uncertain whether or not the Minbari can employ their full potential range (thousands of km, possibly tens of thousands) against the Feds thou gh - can they use their shields to defeat EM sensors? If so, where was this used, and is this used consistently? If they can, its possible the Minbari are also going to be restricted to close range.

I don't really see either side having a "one shot kill" in this engagement - that is, neither side has an overwhelming advantage over the other.

Yes. I don't necessarily subscribe to some people's understanding
that the event was a total fluke, nor do I really think Minbari armor
is "all that" (I see that Starfury ramming through a fin every time
I even think of the Minbari), but then again, that's not their primary
strength. Their firepower and stealth is.

I'm not trying to ignore the Black Star's susceptibility to the low-MT nukes, like many Fivers do (they use the "something else occuring" argument to pretend they can claim any yield they want.) - but its quite obvious that the damage that WAS done was at best moderate or medium.

My belief, which is supporte d in B5 Wars, is that All B5 ships tend to "selectively" armor sections of the ship - all segments and sections are armored differently, and to different strengths. More armor is obviously placed around essential systems and areas (living quarters, command sections, engines, reactors, etc.) than over nonessential sections (external systems like gun ports, sensors, thrusters, - or "Decorative" elements like the fins) - thus there are parts of ships that are far easier to damage than others. I believe that this is perfectly consistent with what we see in B5.

Again, citing B5 Wars, I generally think that it would require around 10-12 (no more than 16) low megaton nukes (proximity detonations, as per Black Star - though probably close - no mroe than a kilometer away, and probably more like a few hundred) to destroy a War Cruiser. Possibly as few as 5, 6, or even 8. That's enough to suggest that even a War Cruiser (or possibly even the White Star - which is in many ways comparable to much larger ships) can survive at least a couple "missed" photorps, albeit with damage.

Probably, yes. I used one of my own upper-limits earlier when I
threw out a 120,000 TJ figure, but I didn't mean to. I meant to
use a no. more along the lines of 50-60,000 TJ, which I think is
a more realistic assessment of the shield strength.

seems reasonable.

I tend to stand by that upper-limit, though without something similar
for Defiant I'd like to use something a little more conservative.
I guess that the WS oughta be relatively close to Defiant's
firepower, however.

I was simply pointing out that its possible for the Shadow ship (which is the basis for the WS firepower incident) could have absorbed UP to half the nuke's detonation in ItF, which does lead to "higher" upper limit values. I think it might have absorbed more, but not much more (say 20-25% at most..) - we're talking probably no more than 2x what Brian estimated, 3x at the utmost. This places an extreme upper limit of 10 MT/s on the White Star - which sho uld be more than comparable to any other Trek vessel's upper limit (possibly excluding full torpedo spreads)

That's simply my belief though - the 12,500 TW upper limit works perfectly well, IMHO - and I've also generally been more conservative - citing merely "thousands" of TW, rather than that full value A few thousand TW of sustained firepower should be enough to match any Federation warship of at least comparable size, Defiant included.

[SyntaxVorlon]

I may have, or someone else may have, mentioned that a shadow vessal was destroyed by the forward beam of a whitestar and two forward beams on a G'Quan, and at another time a Shadow vessal was destroyed by a single whitestar that had drained it's jump engine capacitors. That means that the weapons on the white star are able to when pressed fire with far greater power than a G'Quan cruiser. It is thus several times as strong.

[Sarevok]

1. The origional Whitestar was destroyed when it crashed into a planet carrying TWO 500 megaton bombs onboard which detonated

Sorry about that. However while the detonation of the two 500 megaton bombs destroyed the whitestar there is insufficient evidence to belive that
1000 megaton is the minimum amount of energy needed to destroy a whitestar. Remember a 50 megaton hydrogen bomb will destroy the USS Nimitz but that does not mean that the Nimitz can withstand smaller nuclear nuclear weopens. Minibari war cruisers can be destroyed using 2 megaton weopens. Since war cruisers are considered to be powerful vessels in the Babylon 5 the whitestar would not be much more powerful.

2. There is no proof the Husnok weapon was a shield drainer. That is a straight out lie. When the E-D was hit with the weapon this ship shook violently. This means the shields and ship were battered by the energy. This would not have happened if the shields were drained.

Photon torpedoes are accepted to be 64 megaton weopens. Check the main site for evidence. Most federation ships can withstand multiple hits from photon torpedoes (even a surveyor ship like USS Equinox took five torpedoes before losing shields) so their shields must be measured in hundreds of megatons. Further evidence comes from calculations done on on episode "Relics". Given the overwhelming evidence a 400 GW beam could not defeat the shields through raw power alone. Federation shields are volunerable to frequency based weopens, it is likely that husnock weopen somehow exploited this weakness (remember the dominion phaes polaron beams that could penetrate federation shields when they were first encountered). To claim that federation shields are 400 GW is laughable since NX-1 Enterprise 600 gigajoule phase cannons centuries ago.

The fact that the ship shook violently does not indicated the shields were being defeated by raw power alone. Remember any energy impacting the shields is ultimately fed back into shield generator. The phenomenon of the ship shaking violently is probobly a side effect of the husnock weopen as it effected the shield generator.

3. When has the SI field of the Defiant ALONE stopped multiple torps? This would be a neat trick since the SI field is only focused on stress points of the hull to protect them from deformation.

There has been numerous cases of ships withstanding photon torpedo hits with their shields down. I will quote just one. In "Equinix part II" voyager withstood two torpedoes with only damage to the forward sections of the hull. The SIF is a forcefield that stregthens the hull by an order of magnitudes. Without it a ship can not withstand the nuclear yield weopens commonly used in star trek.

4. Bullshit. How often do consoles explode when a ship takes a hit that has not yet penetrated the shields? How often does Riker report damage to this or that deck from hits even though the shields are not yet down? This shows that either a portion of the power penetrates the shields with every hit or the feedback does the damage. On the other hand WS reflectic armor reflects 90% plus of the energy back into space and the self-repairing hull fixes any damage caused by the energy that gets through.

Again this is due to the frequency based volunerability of federation shields. Capital ship phasers and disruptors very hard to stop completely. In fact properly tuned to the enemy shield frequency a phaser or disruptor will pass through the shields a if they were not there. Some weopens like phased polaron beams ignore shields all togather untill the shields have been specialy adopted to counter them. Smaller weopens on the other hand like shuttlecraft phasers and weopens deployed by the less advanced races can easily be shrugged off by the bigger ships. Sometimes ships can withstand one or two torpedo hits without suffering any damage at all. Also the actual damage suffered with shields active is minimum and is primarily limited to surges in plasma conduits causing the infamous exploding console syndrome.

As for the whitestar the armor did reflect certain portion of the energy but
the ship still takes damage. Also self healing armor is a major brain bug.
Multimegaton weopens vaporize considerable portions of armor away. So a ship is quickly going run out of material to repair itself as weopen fire can blast chunks of armor away. After all to repair armor you need to compensate for the hundreds tons that will be lost as it vaporized or blasted into space by the proximity detonation of a photon torpdeo.
In the end organic armor would be use less as a single torpedo hit will kill
the whitestar.

5. Minbari ships were undetectable from day one to EArthforce ships. This was before they had any idea what kind of tech the Earthforce ships had. So lack of knowledge about enemy tech does automatically mean stealthy won't work.

Did you read what I said ? Every stealth technology is designed to foil specific types of sensors. Minibari stealth technology is designed to defeat the types of sensors they knew. Since they have no access to subspace based technology they don't know how subspace sensors work and can not possibly design a ship invisible to subspace sensors. The bottom line is you need to know the type of sensors you are dealing with to defeat it. The fact that minibari stealth worked against earthforce ships does not mean it will work against federation ships. Considering the technological parity between the minibari and earthforce ships it was likely they used similar sensors and so the stealth stuff worked. Assuming
minibari stealth will work against subspace sensor is same as beliving a radar jammer will work against an underwater sonar.

6. Tell me one specific line where they tell you EM sensors are used on the WS and are the only sensors used. You won't be able to because yet again you are lying your moronic ass off. Bab5 rarely if ever went into details about such things.

Sorry I was making a wrong assumtion here. I am as wrong in this point as the trekkie who claimed federation shields are immune to lasers.

7. ROFLMAO!!! Show me one fucking time a torpedo on screen was fired at a target more than a few hundred miles away. Torps can't do shit unless the target is well within visual range. What the show fanboy whore.

Haven't you ever seen federation ships hitting ground targets from geo-stationary orbit. If torpedoes were so short ranged as you claim they would take hours to free fall towards the planet when infact they were hitting targets within seconds. In the "the changeling" a photon torpedo hit a target 80000 kilometers away. And in the "Human Error" Voyager hit a subspace warhead 5 million kilometers.

Whitestar organic armor can deflect pulse phasers if they take enough beating to "learn" it. Also, it can regenerate itself. The organic armor is like 8472's, except no technobabble virus can destroy it. Also, if organic armor was so inferior, then how was 8472 able to beat up Borg ships silly? Shadows and Vorlons in the B5 'verse as well. Also, ship phasers most certainly CANNOT vape a ship in battle, not only have we not seen it, but if that was the case the Dominion war would not have lasted as long as it did. Also, ship phasers cannot become more powerful than a photon torpedo.

Your logic is flawed if the whitestar can adapt to anything then the idiot trekkie who claimed the borg can adapt to death star superlaser is correct
How do you know that the whitestar's organic armor is same as S8472 bioship armor ? Ship phasers can not vaporize another ship because the ships used in the dominion war were not exactly tin cans. Ship hull stregth in star trek is magnitudes higher than the real world. As for the whitestar it
is made of organic materials. Considering the wonders federation phasers can work on organic matter a shuttlecraft phaser would destroy the whitestar with a single shot, in fact a hand phaser could do it too.

WHAT THE HELL? Photon torpedoes are NOT atomic bombs. Also, photon torpedoes cannot fly that far and be entirely accurate, they'll always miss by a distance. Whitestars could avoid Shadow slicer beams, and they certainly are VERY accurate (note the scene when SBCs annihalated a Narn fleet). Discounting the Enterprise scene, phasers cannot fire in warp, and ships can only battle in warp when they are both in warp, and Whitestars cannot warp. Also, note the Picard maneuver, you can't maneuver around a ship in warp because a half-second warp blast would ram into the enemy.

You are correct photon torpedoes are not atomic bombs they anti-matter weopens with yields equivalent to large modern day hydrogen bombs. As for torpedo range and accuracy please read above.

I have serious doubts about whitestar maneuverability. Many ships babylon 5 does not have artificial gravity and so are limited to 1 g accelerations. The whitestar is not that much faster than them. Federation ships on the other hand are capable of hundreds gs, 1000+ gs in case of the agile defiant.

In fact the defiant does not even need to battle the whitestar. It could just approach it within 40000 kilometers and beam bomb aboard.

I can assume you're also a rabid trekkie as well?

No I am just average person who likes both star wars, star trek and various sci-fi franchises.






[/quote]

[Connor MacLeod]

Sorry about that. However while the detonation of the two 500 megaton bombs destroyed the whitestar there is insufficient evidence to belive that
1000 megaton is the minimum amount of energy needed to destroy a whitestar.
[/qoute]

I don't believe anyone is treating it as a l ower limit, so your bringing it up is a red herring.

Minibari war cruisers can be destroyed using 2 megaton weopens. Since war cruisers are considered to be powerful vessels in the Babylon 5 the whitestar would not be much more powerful.

Possibly not. Maybe not. Jms has suggested that it takes two cruisers to destroy an immobilized Shadow vessel, but one can do it if the attack is sustained and concentrated (much as the White Star did ).

Besides which, if you WATCHED in the Beginning, you would know that the nuke actually inflicted only some structural damage - mostly on the fins in fact (which are thinner than the overall body structure) but the majority survived intact. I suppose if you get some energy up into the gunports with a proximity detonations (or whatever spots were exploited to cause the death of the black star - the weapons seem the most probable based on what we learn in Legend of the Rangers) - you might damage/destroy the ship.

Photon torpedoes are accepted to be 64 megaton weopens. Check the main site for evidence.

Thats the upper limit for them, dumbass. You obviously did not read the site itself:

The overall impact of a photon torpedo on its target is therefore an amount of energy, in the form of superheated matter, gamma radiation, thermal radiation, and highly energetic subatomic particles, which is less than or equal to 32 megatons in quantity for a direct impact, and as little as 10 megatons in quantity for a medium-proximity blast (decreasing with increasing distance, based on the radius beyond which charged pions decay into useless neutrinos). If we use the 74% efficiency estimate derived from the DS9 TM, we can determine that a photon torpedo should deliver roughly 24 megatons for a direct impact and as little as 7 megatons for a medium-proximity blast.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tec ... pedo1.html

This is further ignoring of course that most of this is based on the non-canon TM. Most of the observed incidents in Trek seem to indicate much lower yields.. very low megaton UPPER limits, to mid kiloton, at best.

Most federation ships can withstand multiple hits from photon torpedoes (even a surveyor ship like USS Equinox took five torpedoes before losing shields) so their shields must be measured in hundreds of megatons.

Except you're basing them upon an impractical upper limit derived from a non-canon source, with your demonstrated ignorance of what lower and upper limits are. Not only that, you just cited this site as a source, yet ignored the very same fact that ITS UPPER LIMIT ON SHIELDING IS WELL OVER AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE LESS THAN WHAT YOU'RE CLAIMING. And that applies to EM energy alone, whereas its also indicated Fed shields have an extreme weakness to charged particle/plasma weapons (which B5 is known to possess and use - upper limit on those weapons is 1500 TJ by same site you already cited.)

Further evidence comes from calculations done on on episode "Relics". Given the overwhelming evidence a 400 GW beam could not defeat the shields through raw power alone.

You're ignoring the fact particle weapons seem to affect the shields more intensely than EM radiation - this is also documented on this site, which you have already cited as a source.

Federation shields are volunerable to frequency based weopens, it is likely that husnock weopen somehow exploited this weakness (remember the dominion phaes polaron beams that could penetrate federation shields when they were first encountered). To claim that federation shields are 400 GW is laughable since NX-1 Enterprise 600 gigajoule phase cannons centuries ago.

It was 500 GJ. And if we use the Tech Manual I(which you seem fond of citing) PHasers are maybe a GW. If you hadn't bothered looking only for the highest figures you could get away with, you might have noticed that FED shields APPEAR TO BE MORE VULNERABLE TO PARTICLE/PLASMA WEAPONS. Which the Husnock weapon was (which is what phasers are)

Even if we assume the GW range weapons are osmewhat anomalous, phasers are unlikely to be more than a couple orders of magnitude more powerful htan the Enterprise phase cannons. At best, maybe a few hundred TJ UPPER LIMIT - based on this same site you cited for photorps I(since we know phasers are particle beam weapons.) We should note that their effectiveness seems also material-dependent, so they can be even less effective as well.

The fact that the ship shook violently does not indicated the shields were being defeated by raw power alone. Remember any energy impacting the shields is ultimately fed back into shield generator. The phenomenon of the ship shaking violently is probobly a side effect of the husnock weopen as it effected the shield generator.

Proof? You can back this theory up with actual evidence, I presume? Or are you just wanking out the technobabble as you go?

There has been numerous cases of ships withstanding photon torpedo hits with their shields down. I will quote just one. In "Equinix part II" voyager withstood two torpedoes with only damage to the forward sections of the hull. The SIF is a forcefield that stregthens the hull by an order of magnitudes. Without it a ship can not withstand the nuclear yield weopens commonly used in star trek.

You still haven't proven that the survival was due to the SIF's. And as I pointed out, you're estimating photorps at yields orders of magnitude higher than they actually are - and ignoring the fact that EM radiation weapons (especially ones that deliver energy in the manner of a nuke - over large surface areas) do not neccesairly prove survival. You've heard of intensity right? Beam weapons because they concentrate more energy on a smaller area can actually inflict damage on a ship even though they do not carry as much raw power - how you deliver it can be as important as how much you deliver.

As for the whitestar the armor did reflect certain portion of the energy but
the ship still takes damage. Also self healing armor is a major brain bug.

No, repair systems are canon, dumbass. Considering how much of B5 "fact" you have screwed up on, I'm not surprised.

Lets do some quick math. Optimistically, the Defiant has 4 phased pulse cannons. Lets arbitraily assume (unless a specific comparison can be made to E-d phasers) that they are 5x stronger than E-d phasers. 4 such cannons exist - so the sustained firepower of the Defiant is 300x3x4 = 6000 TW. Mike uses the assumption that 5 seconds of phaser fire can penetrate shields - lets use this and derive 30,000 TJ for shields against particle or plasma weapons (Which White Stars use at least for pulse cannons, if we decide to ignnore the main beam weapon.) before failing.
Note that I'm being ridicuolously generous here 20x generous than Mike's numbers.

Now, in "Walkabout" we learn Minbair White Stars have a max output around 12,500 TW for their weapons. In B5 we've had several instances of fighting against comparable targets (2 drakh gunship beams can destroy a WS - the gunships being approximately the same size and tech level as White Stars (ref: Lines of Communication) - Shadow-enhanced Omegas take at least two hits to damage/destroy White STars (which carry shadow weapons and have far more firepower than regular Omegas). Basically, we'll assume White Star's can withstand one shot from their own weapons- or survive 12,500 TW before being destroyed. Their defense system reflects 90% of the energy away (only 10% energy does any damage.)

Now, lets crunch numbers. The Defiant does 6000 TJ of damage, but since only 10% of that damage actually applies to the ship after the first volley, it takes (12,500 - 6,000 = 6,500/ (6,000x.10) = 10.83~11) 12 seconds of sustained phaser fire to destroy the White Star (ignoring torpedoes for a moment.)

Meanwhile, the Max output of the White Star can be maintained for 20 seconds, and does 12,500 TW (totallyin 250,000 TJ roughly.) Since the shields can absorb only 30,000 TJ of particle weapon fire before failing, it takes only 2 and and a HALF seconds to penetrate shields! The hull probably would absorb no more than the shields, so at most FIVE seconds to destroy the defiant!

That is of course, ignoring photorps (which have their own problems, as already discussed - nto that you acknowleged any of that) and its only a theoretical example based on the evidence on this site and from Brian Young's babtech (http://www.babtech-onthe.net) - but it illustrates how utterly one-dimensional your thinking is.

Multimegaton weopens vaporize considerable portions of armor away. So a ship is quickly going run out of material to repair itself as weopen fire can blast chunks of armor away.

Except you're erroneously assuming fed weapons ARE multimegaton. They are in fact demonstrably far less - orders of magnitude less. Yet omre ignorant fanboyism on your part.

After all to repair armor you need to compensate for the hundreds tons that will be lost as it vaporized or blasted into space by the proximity detonation of a photon torpdeo.
In the end organic armor would be use less as a single torpedo hit will kill
the whitestar.

Only in your own deluded little version of reality. In a more objective version, things are alot less clear cut than you make them out.

Did you read what I said ? Every stealth technology is designed to foil specific types of sensors. Minibari stealth technology is designed to defeat the types of sensors they knew. Since they have no access to subspace based technology they don't know how subspace sensors work and can not possibly design a ship invisible to subspace sensors.

And since they don't have subspace, there are no subspace emissions for those sensors to pick up on. Effectively they ARE cloaked from subspace sensors.

And for that matter, because of hte Picard Manuver, we know that Fed weapons cannot target a vessel by subspace sensors alone - they in fact need lightspeed sensors to target. Such sensors are KNOWN to the Minbari, and hence they would be foiled by the stealth.

The bottom line is you need to know the type of sensors you are dealing with to defeat it. The fact that minibari stealth worked against earthforce ships does not mean it will work against federation ships.

Considering Minbari ships have no subspace emissions, and the feddies need lightspeed sensors for targeting (again, the picard manuver) - it DOES mean the stealth device will work. Get your head uot of your ass please.

Considering the technological parity between the minibari and earthforce ships it was likely they used similar sensors and so the stealth stuff worked.

What the hell are you talking about? IT ws clearly stated in the show the Minbari are FAR more advanced than EA - centuries in fact IIRC. Have you ever even WATCHED Babylon 5???

Assuming
minibari stealth will work against subspace sensor is same as beliving a radar jammer will work against an underwater sonar.

Can you prove subspace sensors are enough to target ships without EM (if you read the webpage on thsi site about sensors, you would know this is not true), and that the subspace sensors can detect Minbari warships (even though they emit no subspace emissions to detect?) I doubt you can prove either, and this is just more evidence of your dumbass fanboy wankfest fantasizing.

Haven't you ever seen federation ships hitting ground targets from geo-stationary orbit. If torpedoes were so short ranged as you claim they would take hours to free fall towards the planet when infact they were hitting targets within seconds.

Hitting a stationary/planetary target is not the same as hitting one in space. For one thing, you dont have to worry about manuvering.

In the "the changeling" a photon torpedo hit a target 80000 kilometers away. And in the "Human Error" Voyager hit a subspace warhead 5 million kilometers.

Were they manuvering? Was there EW present? how fast did the torpedo move?

How do you know that the whitestar's organic armor is same as S8472 bioship armor ?

You just claimed that because the White STar was organic, it would vaporize the WS relatively easily. The Species 8472 ships were far more organic than the White Star (the White star makes clanging noises when impact, and can destroy metallic warships when it rams).

Ship phasers can not vaporize another ship because the ships used in the dominion war were not exactly tin cans. Ship hull stregth in star trek is ma+gnitudes higher than the real world.

Proof? You seem to have trouble producing much proof to back up your claims. I suppose masturbating makes research a bit difficult.

As for the whitestar it
is made of organic materials.

Congratulations, you just added "self contradiction" to your list of stupid actions.

1.) You just alluded to the fact that Bioships could survive phaser fire without being NDF'ed out of existence despite clearly being organic. What exactly is your distinciton between them and the White Star? To turn your own dumbass argument back on you - what proof do you have that White STar's are a differnet kind of "organic" than 8472? We have no reason to assume they are different, so burden of proof is on you to prove otherwise.

2.) I've already proven tht White STar's aren't completely organic. Hrence, your argument is shot down. AGain, sticking your head up your ass is not going to make this fact go away.

Considering the wonders federation phasers can work on organic matter a shuttlecraft phaser would destroy the whitestar with a single shot, in fact a hand phaser could do it too.

Care to prove tehse "wonders" and that they will work on a White STar (especially given the 8472 contradiction?) A White Star is not the same as a human body. I'll further remind you "organic" does not necceairly mean biological. And further, I already proved that White Star's are not totally organic vessels.

You are correct photon torpedoes are not atomic bombs they anti-matter weopens with yields equivalent to large modern day hydrogen bombs. As for torpedo range and accuracy please read above.

ROFLMAO. Photon torpedoes based on observed evidence may just POSSIBLY be kiloton range as an UPPER LIMIT. You'e already demonstrated you have no concept of what an upper limit is, though. For that matter when did you prove torpedo range and accuracy? All I saw were vague statements with little to no canon backing.

I have serious doubts about whitestar maneuverability. Many ships babylon 5 does not have artificial gravity and so are limited to 1 g accelerations.

Minbari ships have artificial gravity. White Star's are stated to have artificial gravity in "Matters of honor" and use gravitic drives.

Again, your astoundingly massive ignorance of B5 shows itself (not to mention your appalling ignorance of other details.)

The whitestar is not that much faster than them. Federation ships on the other hand are capable of hundreds gs, 1000+ gs in case of the agile defiant.

Proof of these accelerations? I've seen I(and done) calcs for the White Star putting their accel's in the hundreds of gees (since its the fastest ship around for the YR/IA, its at least comparable to any larger vessel or other smaller) - I've even seen some thousands of gee estimates.

In fact the defiant does not even need to battle the whitestar. It could just approach it within 40000 kilometers and beam bomb aboard.

Except so many phenomena (such as electrical storms, shields - which the WS has according to B5 Wars, electromagnetic fields generated by an ordinary transformer, increased energy outputs in a ship's atmosphere, by "nucleonic radiation" - protons and neutrons, ions in a planet's atmosphere, ionizing radiation, ionized particles created by a firestorm, TRACTOR beams which White STars also possess as byproducts of gravitic technology, solar radiation.) interfere with transporters, so the common trekkie wank tactic of "beaming a bomb aboard another ship" may not work.

And if you're going to pull cheap tactics like that I'm going to use jump point tactics to frag the Defiant.

I can assume you're also a rabid trekkie as well?

No I am just average person who likes both star wars, star trek and various sci-fi franchises.

[/quote]

[Ted C]

I may have, or someone else may have, mentioned that a shadow vessal was destroyed by the forward beam of a whitestar and two forward beams on a G'Quan, and at another time a Shadow vessal was destroyed by a single whitestar that had drained it's jump engine capacitors. That means that the weapons on the white star are able to when pressed fire with far greater power than a G'Quan cruiser. It is thus several times as strong.

Oh, how little research we do.

Both incidents come from "Walkabout".

The Whitestar engaged a single Shadow cruiser. Lyta managed to telepathically paralyze it, and the White Star was able to kill it with a continuous beam that lasted for about 30 seconds, and the ship dumped in all the energy from its jump engines during the last 5 seconds.

After the first cruiser died, reinforcements showed up. Telepaths on a nearby Minbari Warcruiser were able to paralyze all but one of the reinforcements. The Narn cruiser arrived and opened fire on the Shadow ship pursuing the Whitestar. The Narn cruiser fired on the Shadow cruiser for 15 seconds, and the Whitestar (with somewhat reduced power) joined in the attack for the last 5 seconds.

When you work all that out, you find that the Whitestar has about half the firepower of the Narn cruiser (which is quite impressive for a ship the size of an escort).

[Sam Or I]

[quote]I have serious doubts about whitestar maneuverability. Many ships babylon 5 does not have artificial gravity and so are limited to 1 g accelerations. [/quote]

A F-15 Eagle has greater acceleration than one 1 g, as any modren rocket which can accelerate staight up. I believe a human can constantly with stand upto 3 g's (I may be wrong), and can stand upto 9G's in small bursts, so I do not know where this 1 G figure pops up from.

The whitestar does have artificial gravity, and has a gravity drive. I have never seen the Defiant pull the kinds of G's the whitestar has.

[Sam Or I]

[quote]I have serious doubts about whitestar maneuverability. Many ships babylon 5 does not have artificial gravity and so are limited to 1 g accelerations. [/quote]

A F-15 Eagle has greater acceleration than one 1 g, as any modren rocket which can accelerate staight up. I believe a human can constantly with stand upto 3 g's (I may be wrong), and can stand upto 9G's in small bursts, so I do not know where this 1 G figure pops up from.

The whitestar does have artificial gravity, and has a gravity drive. I have never seen the Defiant pull the kinds of G's the whitestar has.