How long could Mass Effect last against the Federation?

[Joe Momma]

On Mars, they found a cache of technology and a prothean beacon. The prothean beacons beam knowledge directly into someone's head. While Shepard apparently had issues understanding what was beamed into her head, whatever happened off-screen could have made the process of translating an entirely unknown alien language relatively trivial. Especially since the setting has universal translators as part of the Prothean techbase (IE, when Shep finds the prothean VI computer and speaks with it).

According to the codex, the Martian ruins included working computers rather than a beacon. That could have made the process more akin to working with the Prothean VI than trying to translate a beacon transmission. It's still noted as taking a global effort to translate the data.

Also, part of the reason the original beacon download to Shepard was so garbled was due to damage to the artifact. The transmission from the second beacon was much clearer and less traumatic, thought it still required telepathic aid from Liara to help put it in complete context.

[Star Wars 888]

@Batman:

OK, we can continue that debate some other time maybe.




Again, the Federation would have the advantage over the Mass Effect fleets in space combat, but are horribly outnumbered in this scenario and in terms of logistics. The Federation would have to capture a developed planet intact and hold it while possibly getting more fuel for their warp drives and using the planet as a forward base for reinforcements.

Or, they could attack the Citadel and capture it or destroy it, but the former involves facing Mass Effect's vastly more powerful ground forces and the latter involves destroying a VERY hard to destroy Citadel.

BTW, are warp drives and mass relays compatible?

[Stargazer]

Mass relays are separate from mass effect drive FTL. Any ship, as long as they know to send the activation signal, should be able to use them.

And no, the Federation isn't destroying the Citadel. It's made of the same stuff as the mass relays, one of which survived a supernova. Capturing it is highly unlikely as well due to the inferiority of Federation infantry even compared with C-Sec, but the Federation would have the advantage of transporters. However, a simple mineral in Star Trek: Insurrection was able to interfere with transporters, so I would not trust them to get through the 13 meter thick supernova-proof shell of the Citadel.

[Swindle1984]

At a bare minimum, they can locate and target a small 1-metre long object at 90,000km - enough to hit it accurately. There is also two instances where a ship is detected at 200,000km distance in 'The Ultimate Computer', and also in 'The Tholian Web' when Sulu detects the Tholian ship approaching the Enterprise at sublight speeds at the same range. However, this might be more like active combat scanners. In 'The Enterprise Incident' Spock is ordered to conduct a 'full scan of the region' and Spock reports nothing of interest in 1/2 parsec radius. This fits with other parts of the canon where long range sensors have been shown (like TNG's Argus Array, which has dozens or hundreds of parsecs - perhaps even thousands? - sensor radius as it was located near the Cardassian border but could 'see' as far away as Mars in the Sol system. 'Parallels' I believe was the episode. But that's a subspace observatory, while a starship wouldn't have those kind of capabilities)

Of course, sensor range doesn't equate weapons range. And it takes time for the shots to reach their target, even at light speed, which we've never seen a Federation weapon achieve (minus photorps fired from a ship traveling at warp).

Incidentally why is the out-of-universe technical limitations of the TOS animators a factor for you?

Did they not show the other ship because of the limitations of the show, or did they not show it because they wanted to depict the battle as BVR?

I'm sorry, but what? I made it clear I am discussing the original series primarily.

Which no one else is doing. And generally, when we discuss Trek, we discuss the modern era unless specified otherwise. It's sort of like debating about whether or not the US Marine Corps could beat stormtroopers if both sides had blasters, and you start talking about the USMC in WWII while everyone else is talking about the modern USMC. Now, granted, your TOS points are all valid, but it gets old when you exclusively rely on things from TOS. That's my only beef with it.

It's an outlier because the Enterprise wouldn't ordinarily engage a warp-capable enemy at sublight impulse speeds. Because doing so is suicide, as I already mentioned. It's my entire point!

Really? Even though they do just that the majority of the time?

As for later series, well, I already said they changed the setting. So what? In TOS they have these capabilities.

Which changed for some reason. Why?

Fortunately Sean Robertson has come to my rescue here and provided an example of photorps with MT yields.

Really? Where?

Page two I think.[/quote]

Great. Got a canon example?

The Trooper's guns will kill redshirts with ease. The redshirt's phasers will kill the Troopers with ease.

Except for the whole "redshirt's aim sucks" thing. The Troopers' at least seemed to be able to hit their targets despite their bizarre failure to use their sights most of the time. And the fact that a phaser can only hit one target at a time (minus the one instance of wide-beam stun in close quarters on Voyager; that "lol, set it to wide beam and shoot everyone" trick sure would have been handy at Siege of AR-558, wouldn't it?) vs a machine gun that sprays dozens of bullets all over the place. Ok, a redshirt just zapped one guy in my squad. I just held down the trigger and jerked the barrel of my gun back and forth and took out five of his squad.

(A phaser set to kill will disappear a target into oblivion)

No, a phaser set on kill just kills someone. Not always immediately. If you want to waste the battery and make people disappear, that works too.

Of the two weapons, the phaser is more lethal -

In spite of the shitty ergonomics, inability to aim the thing, the relatively low rate of fire, the fact that it DOESN'T always kill instantly, and the fact that you can only shoot at one enemy at a time while they're sending a hail of bullets at you.

even if you get shot you may not die instantly, and Star Trek has transporters so medivacs are almost instantaneous.

How often do we see a medevac in the middle of a firefight? And I've got news for you, but when you're riddled full of bullets, especially ones that tend to fragment on impact with tissue like 5.56mm FMJ rounds do, even instant teleportation to the ER isn't guaranteed to save you.

But a phaser will disintegrate a target. Phasers can also fire on a wide beam too.

So they can set their phasers on wide beam and vaporize entire swathes of the enemy. It sure came in handy all those times they used it against charging Jem'hadar, Klingons, and- oh, wait.

So what matters is how many troops each side has and what kind of tactics are being employed. The troopers have possibly the worst tactics ever seen in televised sci-fi.

Yes, they do. Clearly they should have used orbital bombardment and only used infantry when combined with heavy armor with air support. Neither of which the Federation has in any era.

In TOS, they at least take cover and manoeuvre for advantageous firing positions.

Again, there's not much reason for someone to take cover when there is no one shooting back at them, so why exactly do you expect to see the Troopers hiding behind bullet-resistant cover when fighting bugs? Better still, except for when they were fighting from behind a wall, when was the terrain suitable to protecting them against the bugs?

Sure, redshirts are known to die, sometimes quite horribly, but not because they employ stupid tactics. Most of the time they're unlucky, taken by surprise or are clearly outclassed (like the vampire cloud in 'Obsession' or things like the poison dart plantor land mine rocks in 'The Apple' which no-one was expecting).

You're refusing to use examples from later series just to tweak me now, aren't you. Also, I'm not going to fault someone who dies because a freaking flower shoots them or a rock explodes like a hand grenade (incidentally, highlighting their vulnerability to grenades, which the Troopers possess aplenty.). That's the sort of shit you just can't plan for.

But they do employ stupid tactics. For instance, if a packing crate is resistant enough to phaser fire that you can take cover behind it in a firefight, why not wear a vest made from the same material? And why not send troops into battle in something more appropriate, like camouflage combat uniforms instead of one-piece jumpsuits with no pockets? Or all-terrain combat boots instead of the same dress shoes worn aboard ship?

Once again, the capability is there. If TNG ignored it then that's not the fault of TOS now is it?

It also never showed up in TOS again either, even when it would have been handy. And what about all the times when you DON'T have a starship hanging around in orbit to support you, or it's engaged in battle? What then?

In 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' Enterprise locks its tractor beam onto a late 1960's era USAF interceptor which had been scrambled to approach the Enterprise. If it can do that with a tractor beam I'm sure it could do the same with its phasers, especially since phasers have far longer optimum ranges than what took place in that episode.

The Enterprise was in the atmosphere at the time. The fighter jet was close enough to it that the pilot was describing what the ship looked like to his superiors on the ground. And the fighter appeared to be matching speeds with the Enterprise as he flew directly toward it. This is NOT evidence that an orbiting starship can reliably hit aircraft that are actively maneuvering.

*snip protestations over phaser cannons and mortars and rifles*

It doesn't matter that they're only seen once. These things don't have to be seen more than once for us to know that they have the capability to employ them.

So why DON'T they employ them ever again, even when it would have made a lot of sense and been really handy to do so? Are you really being THAT fucking stupid? Why not just say that the redshirts can clearly replicate Davy Crockett tactical nukes and use them to wipe out the entire posing army?


I'm not even bothering with the rest. You're just wanking and making shit up now.

[Stofsk]

Of course, sensor range doesn't equate weapons range.

You asked for sensor range for fuck's sake:

Does it show no visual contact because the ship was BVR, or because of the limitations of the original series? If we can establish what the outer range of the Enterprise's detection radius is, then we can say for certain. Otherwise, "confidentally suggesting" means little other than "it doesn't disprove my version of events, therefore it must support it". I'm inclined to agree with you on this one, but I want it nailed down more concretely before settling on a position.

And the weapons ranges aren't too far below the sensors either!

And it takes time for the shots to reach their target, even at light speed, which we've never seen a Federation weapon achieve (minus photorps fired from a ship traveling at warp).

Time? The photorp in 'The Changeling' covers a distance of 90,000km in 5 seconds roughly. That's 18000km/s. That's pretty fast for sublight. Phasers being a STL particle beam of some description cover a distance of 75,000km in a few seconds as well. All of these are faster than Mass Effect's ship weaponry btw.

Did they not show the other ship because of the limitations of the show, or did they not show it because they wanted to depict the battle as BVR?

Obviously the latter, considering the lines of dialogue in the episodes in question! The writers of TOS knew what they were doing. Can't say the same about TNG however.

Which no one else is doing. And generally, when we discuss Trek, we discuss the modern era unless specified otherwise. It's sort of like debating about whether or not the US Marine Corps could beat stormtroopers if both sides had blasters, and you start talking about the USMC in WWII while everyone else is talking about the modern USMC. Now, granted, your TOS points are all valid, but it gets old when you exclusively rely on things from TOS. That's my only beef with it.

Sounds like you're just whining. I wasn't exclusively relying on things from TOS, as I've referred to things from TNG as well (like the ranges given in 'The Wounded' which cover hundreds of thousands of kilometres for their photorps), but even if I was, so what? TOS is canon.

Really? Even though they do just that the majority of the time?

So you're going to persist in ignoring TOS because TNG did things differently? Too bad, TOS is canonical. Even TNG would win a fight with ME, so your point is worthless.

Which changed for some reason. Why?

Who cares? You can only answer this with pointless speculation. I've already said they changed things for stylistic purposes, because it looks more dramatic to see both ships in a single frame. That's a conceit common to virtually all sci-fi shows and movies, like Star Wars and Battlestar. TOS was unique in how it depicted starship combat as BVR. I think it should be applauded for that.

Great. Got a canon example?

He did provide a canon example. You know what, he even replied to your demand for such evidence, and you completely ignored him.

Except for the whole "redshirt's aim sucks" thing.

Prove it.

The Troopers' at least seemed to be able to hit their targets despite their bizarre failure to use their sights most of the time. And the fact that a phaser can only hit one target at a time (minus the one instance of wide-beam stun in close quarters on Voyager; that "lol, set it to wide beam and shoot everyone" trick sure would have been handy at Siege of AR-558, wouldn't it?)

What the fuck? Oh only one example and somehow that makes it invalid? You entered this thread asking for single examples of things and when they've been provided to you, you now claim 'oh shit well I guess single examples = exceptions!' Don't shift goal posts now.

No, a phaser set on kill just kills someone.

No, a phaser set to kill disappears someone into oblivion. And you can kill thousands like that with a small supply of hand phasers, just ask Captain Tracey of USS Exeter! 'The Omega Glory'

In spite of the shitty ergonomics, inability to aim the thing, the relatively low rate of fire, the fact that it DOESN'T always kill instantly, and the fact that you can only shoot at one enemy at a time while they're sending a hail of bullets at you.

None of that matters to the lethality of the beam you twit. And the last point about 'you can only shoot at one enemy at a time' is total rubbish in light of the fact you can set it to wide-beam.

OH NO SINGLE EXAMPLE!!1

How often do we see a medevac in the middle of a firefight? And I've got news for you, but when you're riddled full of bullets, especially ones that tend to fragment on impact with tissue like 5.56mm FMJ rounds do, even instant teleportation to the ER isn't guaranteed to save you.

We see medivacs often enough in all series. They can beam directly to sickbay in the TNG period. And thanks for condescendingly pointing out that people who get shot with multiple bullets die horribly. Wow I didn't know that.

Let me ask a real life soldier what he would prefer on a modern battlefield, waiting for a medivac copter or getting an instantaneous teleport to the ER. HMMMM HARD CHOICE!

But a phaser will disintegrate a target. Phasers can also fire on a wide beam too.

So they can set their phasers on wide beam and vaporize entire swathes of the enemy. It sure came in handy all those times they used it against charging Jem'hadar, Klingons, and- oh, wait.

Oh wait - what? Are you arguing that phasers can't be used to disintegrate targets? Are you arguing that they can't be used on wide beam? Because that would be moronic.

Maybe the reason why they didn't use the phasers in that fashion in those instances were because the writers were fucking stupid - did that ever occur to you? That they wanted to depict a dramatic infantry charge by the enemy which descends into a vicious melee, when they could have just killed them in seconds based on their own weapon's observed characteristics countless times before?

Yes, they do. Clearly they should have used orbital bombardment and only used infantry when combined with heavy armor with air support. Neither of which the Federation has in any era.

Actually, spaceships in orbit would be analogous to air support, it's just that in Troopers those spaceships don't do anything other than sit there and get shot.

Again, there's not much reason for someone to take cover when there is no one shooting back at them, so why exactly do you expect to see the Troopers hiding behind bullet-resistant cover when fighting bugs? Better still, except for when they were fighting from behind a wall, when was the terrain suitable to protecting them against the bugs?

The terrain was never suitable to protect them from the bugs. Except for the part where bugs were limited to melee and were charging them across wide-open plains and the Troopers didn't have things like mortars or artillery for area-effect weaponry or using machine guns other than those that were on the tower in that one base they got trapped in.

You're refusing to use examples from later series just to tweak me now, aren't you.

Yes, it's all a conspiracy directed towards you.

Maybe I'm arguing from TOS's perspective because I - get this - actually like TOS? No way, that couldn't be it at all.

But they do employ stupid tactics. For instance, if a packing crate is resistant enough to phaser fire that you can take cover behind it in a firefight, why not wear a vest made from the same material?

How often does this happen? Do we know for certain that phasers during such firefights were set to kill or disrupt? Perhaps they were set to stun? Do you have examples of such firefights? There is one I remember quite distinctly in season two of DS9 where Kira is taken hostage by the Circle terrorists, Sisko Bashir that Bajoran dude and two other security guys storm the place in a rescue. They take cover behind various objects, and the terrorists open fire on them. Two of the security guards get hit and so does Bashir, but Bashir gets up and orders a beam out when he frees Kira. The security guards get beamed up as well. Looks like they were stunned to me, especially when there was no burn marks on their clothing and one was even conscious enough to order a beam out.

And why not send troops into battle in something more appropriate, like camouflage combat uniforms instead of one-piece jumpsuits with no pockets? Or all-terrain combat boots instead of the same dress shoes worn aboard ship?

Sure, that's a valid criticism. Why don't stormtroopers wear camoflaged armour? For that matter, why don't the troops from Mass Effect? Maybe sci-fi in general gets this wrong.

Combat boots is something else though. TOS uniforms had boots.

It also never showed up in TOS again either, even when it would have been handy.

Like when? Kirk did it to impress the locals in that episode. At various other times the ship has been used in a similar fashion - 'A Taste of Armageddon' he threatens Eminiar with destruction via the ship's weapons, in 'The Alternative Factor' and 'The Apple' Kirk has the Enterprise fire on objects that threaten them all, and in 'Bread and Circuses' Scotty uses the ship to affect the power of the capital city on the planet where Kirk and co have been taken prisoner. Other instances occurred where Kirk couldn't radio up for help, or the ship was under attack anyway, like in 'Arena'.

And what about all the times when you DON'T have a starship hanging around in orbit to support you, or it's engaged in battle? What then?

Here's a hint: don't start the invasion until you have space superiority. Even in 'Arena' Kirk knew he couldn't rely on the Enterprise if it was worried about him and facing down a warship at the same time, and would rather see it withdraw to safety than stick around on his account.

In 'Tomorrow is Yesterday' Enterprise locks its tractor beam onto a late 1960's era USAF interceptor which had been scrambled to approach the Enterprise. If it can do that with a tractor beam I'm sure it could do the same with its phasers, especially since phasers have far longer optimum ranges than what took place in that episode.

The Enterprise was in the atmosphere at the time. The fighter jet was close enough to it that the pilot was describing what the ship looked like to his superiors on the ground. And the fighter appeared to be matching speeds with the Enterprise as he flew directly toward it. This is NOT evidence that an orbiting starship can reliably hit aircraft that are actively maneuvering.

How do you know it was matching speeds rather than accelerating towards it? In fact, it wasn't 'matching speeds' at all because Captain Christopher had been order to intercept it and force it down and Spock reports it was rapidly closing the distance!

The Enterprise being in the atmosphere at the time is irrelevant. The interceptor being in visual range of it is irrelevant. And I have listed examples from TOS where they hit targets from tens of thousands of kilometres away in space. You seriously think a starship in orbit is going to have a tough time shooting a ship going at mach speeds when they have shot at targets going at greater velocities? Locking a tractor beam onto a target just shows they can do it.

So why DON'T they employ them ever again, even when it would have made a lot of sense and been really handy to do so? Are you really being THAT fucking stupid? Why not just say that the redshirts can clearly replicate Davy Crockett tactical nukes and use them to wipe out the entire posing army?

You're a fucking idiot. You entered this thread asking for 'single instances' of things Trek can do. When someone points out these single instances you get pissy and shift goal posts. I don't have to show them using these things every fucking episode, once is enough! Furthermore phaser rifles were seen numerous times in TNG and DS9, so on that regard you're totally wrong. As for the other things, maybe they weren't available at the time or maybe they had them but had no ammunition or power for them. Who knows? And who cares.

I'm not even bothering with the rest. You're just wanking and making shit up now.

Get fucked. I have provided numerous examples of everything, citing the episodes in question and what was observed during said episodes, and they happen to disagree with you and you have... provided nothing. At all.

Your entire contribution to this thread has been to attack Trek because Starwars888 made a few boasts of what Trek's capabilities were and how these capabilities allow it to dominate Mass Effect. Well it turns out those capabilities are canonical. You can't ignore them nor can you refute them. All you can do is whine about them, and it grows tiresome.

[Stofsk]

Can't believe that I missed this:

In TOS Kirk used a grenade launcher with yields that may have been in the kiloton range. Another character said the range of 1200 m was "a little close." I can't find a picture of the explosion, but at 1200 m away the fireball filled the screen. While I don't think TNG ships carry it standard, they could probably whip one up pretty fast.

http://www.filmjunk.com/images/weblog/2 ... le52_8.jpg

From sd.net itself:

http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Gr ... ry-ST.html

To the best of my knowledge, no Federation mortar has been seen or even mentioned in the entire series runs of Star Trek TNG, DS9, or Voyager. It's been nearly a century since a mortar was seen in the hands of the Federation, and every single piece of ground equipment has undergone major redesign since then. There is no reason to assume that mortars still exist in their inventory, particularly since we've seen several situations in which they would have been appropriate, yet they still didn't appear. This means that Federation soldiers are incapable of engaging ground forces without a line of sight and a short range to target.

When they were finally able to locate a mortar of their own in order to return fire, they fired an interesting billiard-ball shell. This shell had a very large wide-area effect; so wide, in fact, that they fired it without a forward observer or even a tricorder reading, since Spock's tricorder had already been destroyed. Instead, they fired it based on a location estimate, roughly based on the Gorns' last known position. It detonated with a high airburst, and it silenced the Gorn mortar with just one shot! On the surface, this would suggest an extremely powerful weapon such as a low-yield tactical nuclear device. However, it produced none of the effects of a nuclear explosion. There was no shockwave. No deafening roar. No fireball. No prompt ionizing radiation. There was only a bright flash of light, from which the men briefly put their arms up in order to shield their eyes. Given the lack of nuclear or even high-yield chemical explosive effects, it is clear that this shell was not a high explosive or nuclear weapon. Moreover, there is no evidence that any Gorns were actually killed by the blast; the Gorn vessel took the risk of lowering its shields in order to beam its troops back up, which would be illogical if its troops were all dead. It is most likely that the projectile in question was actually some sort of electromagnetic pulse device, designed not to cause physical damage or radiation burns but to disable electronics (such as those in the Gorn projectile launchers, if any, or in the disruptor projectiles themselves). It might have even been capable of "shorting out" biochemical nervous systems, thus causing disorientation or perhaps even unconsciousness (although there is no way of ascertaining the validity of this speculation). In short, it is most likely that the weapon was an EMP grenade.

There's also no reason to assume they stopped using them, especially when photon grenades are referenced in TNG's 'Legacy'. LaForge even notes the lowest yield can stun, so even if Mike's speculation about the TOS mortars is accurate it doesn't mean they can only stun in a EMP blast. I suspect these grenades work a lot like phasers work, especially if LaForge notes the variable yields.

[Vympel]

There's also no reason to assume they stopped using them, especially when photon grenades are referenced in TNG's 'Legacy'. LaForge even notes the lowest yield can stun, so even if Mike's speculation about the TOS mortars is accurate it doesn't mean they can only stun in a EMP blast. I suspect these grenades work a lot like phasers work, especially if LaForge notes the variable yields.

There's no reason to believe the never-seen "photon grenades" of TNG Legacy are the same thing as the mortar used in that TOS episode.

There's good reason to believe Starfleet's ground forces are pretty dramatically underarmed. Just look at the DS9 'Homefront' arc, where the (traitorous) Admiral is proudly pontificating about how they've been preparing for the nefarious Dominion threat by building up supplies of small arms, personal shields and photon grenades on Earth - like this is supposed to be a noteworthy exertion of effort:-

We've been preparing for something
like this for a long time. We
have stockpiles of phaser rifles,
personal forcefields, photon
grenades, enough to equip an
entire army. I can start placing
troops in the streets immediately.

Its like saying Russia's preparing for invasion by building up supplies of AKs and frag grenades. The 'personal forcefield' thing is interesting too - never seen as part of anyone's TO&E in the entire continuity, it can probably be only mustered in small numbers, possibly due to high cost.

[Stargazer]

I am highly skeptical of "personal forcefields" meaning some kind of personal shield that protects a single person. If such a thing exists, we would see them far more in the series. I would expect the flagship of the Federation, the Enterprise, to have at least some on hand to protect the command crew if they're going into hostile situations. But they don't. So either it's just an random outlier that should be ignored...

...or it means something totally different. Note the word choice- personal force fields. Throughout Star Trek "force fields" has meant a "wall" of energy, not the bubble around ships or objects. So perhaps "personal force fields" are force field generators that are small enough to be carried by infantry and can be used to quickly set up defensive positions. Such devices would only be useful in pitched ground combat, which we rarely see in Star Trek, so the absence of them in the series can be excused.

But that's just an idea, with no real backing.

[Stofsk]

There's also no reason to assume they stopped using them, especially when photon grenades are referenced in TNG's 'Legacy'. LaForge even notes the lowest yield can stun, so even if Mike's speculation about the TOS mortars is accurate it doesn't mean they can only stun in a EMP blast. I suspect these grenades work a lot like phasers work, especially if LaForge notes the variable yields.

There's no reason to believe the never-seen "photon grenades" of TNG Legacy are the same thing as the mortar used in that TOS episode.

Why do you put it in quotation marks? Do you think LaForge spontaneously talked about a weapon they didn't actually have in that episode?

EDIT forgot to mention, in Arena they referred to it as a grenade launcher. Why exactly can't we assume they're not part of the same weapon?

[Vympel]

You know, before ME2, the use of quotation marks wasn't an indicator of sarcasm or skepticism. They were for ... quoting people

I am highly skeptical of "personal forcefields" meaning some kind of personal shield that protects a single person. If such a thing exists, we would see them far more in the series. I would expect the flagship of the Federation, the Enterprise, to have at least some on hand to protect the command crew if they're going into hostile situations. But they don't. So either it's just an random outlier that should be ignored...

I was going to say the exact same thing actually. They might be small man-portable units for protecting small areas.

[Vympel]

EDIT forgot to mention, in Arena they referred to it as a grenade launcher. Why exactly can't we assume they're not part of the same weapon?

That's a very long bow to draw. It's many decades later, and how many grenades can you name that are deployed with both an integral launcher and are also presumably hand deployed (when not beamed).

You wouldn't call them 'photon grenades' like the Admiral in Homefront does, you'd call them grenade launchers.

EDIT: it'd be like assuming when a soldier refers to a grenade, he must be referring to the grenade of an RPG-7 that we saw in a war forty years ago.

[Stofsk]

EDIT forgot to mention, in Arena they referred to it as a grenade launcher. Why exactly can't we assume they're not part of the same weapon?

That's a very long bow to draw. It's many decades later, and how many grenades can you name that are deployed with both an integral launcher and are also presumably hand deployed (when not beamed).

How do you know they're hand deployed?

Isn't the problem here lack of information? You're assuming they're hand deployed, I'm assuming they're if not the same then similar in principle, Mike is assuming they chucked it out completely.

[Vympel]

How do you know they're hand deployed?

Because they're called photon grenades. The context of "Homefront" makes it clear they're grenades in the classic sense - if they're just ammunition for the launcher, you'd say "grenade launchers" (like it was called in TOS apparently- I've seen the episode but don't rememeber).

Think about it this way - if I said to you "here, take these frag grenades" and I handed you a 6G30, you'd think I was a bit funny

Isn't the problem here lack of information? You're assuming they're hand deployed, I'm assuming they're if not the same then similar in principle, Mike is assuming they chucked it out completely.

I think its safe to assume that the weapons mentioned in DS9/TNG aren't related to the launcher in TOS. That's a seperate issue from whether an equivalent launcher isn't in service in the DS9/TNG era. Unfortunately the only evidence we have of any sort of indirect launcher in that era are the Klingon mortars in Nor the Battle To the Strong, which might launch bags of flower.

[Imperial Overlord]

I think its safe to assume that the weapons mentioned in DS9/TNG aren't related to the launcher in TOS. That's a seperate issue from whether an equivalent launcher isn't in service in the DS9/TNG era. Unfortunately the only evidence we have of any sort of indirect launcher in that era are the Klingon mortars in Nor the Battle To the Strong, which might launch bags of flower.

Not quite the only evidence. The Jem'Hadar shell the area around a downed attack ship in "The Ship" in order to intimidate Sisko into surrender. Worf is able to identify what kind of shells are in use and that they're capable of destroying the ship if they score a direct hit. It's explicitly stated that it simply isn't credible that they haven't hit the ship with the barrage if they were trying and that they have to be trying to force a surrender. The crappy motars in "Nor the Battle To the Strong" are in fact the outlier, although the group is pretty damn small.

[Manus Celer Dei]

As another thing to mention, is there any reason Photorps aren't just fired outright at every opponent at max ROF? It seems ST ships are darn stingy with their use half the time (DS9 excluded where they spam the hell out of those things). Maybe the new Star Trek movie's suggestion that Photorps are ineffective or greatly reduced in effectiveness against fully shielded targets make sense then. Having a shield buffer and the issues of effective surface area exposed seems reasonable.

It makes sense for DS9 to be able to spam them, as it's probably got a much larger stockpile that the ships and gets resupplied often enough. In TOS the Enterprise was normally way out on the frontier, where getting replacements would be difficult, and Voyager was in an even worse position; it makes sense they'd be pretty conservative with that they've got.

[Stofsk]

How do you know they're hand deployed?

Because they're called photon grenades. The context of "Homefront" makes it clear they're grenades in the classic sense - if they're just ammunition for the launcher, you'd say "grenade launchers" (like it was called in TOS apparently- I've seen the episode but don't rememeber).

Think about it this way - if I said to you "here, take these frag grenades" and I handed you a 6G30, you'd think I was a bit funny

You're right - I would think you're a bit funny. I'd be thinking 'what the christ is vympel doing with explosive devices and WHY IS HE HANDING THEM TO ME'

I think its safe to assume that the weapons mentioned in DS9/TNG aren't related to the launcher in TOS. That's a seperate issue from whether an equivalent launcher isn't in service in the DS9/TNG era. Unfortunately the only evidence we have of any sort of indirect launcher in that era are the Klingon mortars in Nor the Battle To the Strong, which might launch bags of flower.

Not quite the only evidence. The Jem'Hadar shell the area around a downed attack ship in "The Ship" in order to intimidate Sisko into surrender. Worf is able to identify what kind of shells are in use and that they're capable of destroying the ship if they score a direct hit. It's explicitly stated that it simply isn't credible that they haven't hit the ship with the barrage if they were trying and that they have to be trying to force a surrender. The crappy motars in "Nor the Battle To the Strong" are in fact the outlier, although the group is pretty damn small.

I don't remember 'Nor the Battle to the Strong' with any clarity. But that's an interesting point about 'The Ship'.

[keen320]

Haven't a lot of the buildings on the citadel been built there separately by the species using them? Because if they are, then most of the citadel would be susceptible to bombardment if a ship could get inside.

About lack of sci-fi camouflage: Unless you had active camouflage or a cloaking device, you might need different camouflage for every planet you went to. Although I'd think the Federation could just replicate tailor made camouflage as needed. Then again, the red ensures they can be easily identified as marked for death... I mean federation security personnel who no one should kill intentionally or unintentionally for fear of the consequences.

[Stargazer]

Indeed. The problem, then, is getting inside the Citadel. The Federation certainly doesn't have starship-scale transporters.

[Swindle1984]

He did provide a canon example. You know what, he even replied to your demand for such evidence, and you completely ignored him.

Except his "canon" example was the tech manual.

Except for the whole "redshirt's aim sucks" thing.

Prove it.

I can't find the Trek Miss videos on youtube any more. Pity.

What the fuck? Oh only one example and somehow that makes it invalid? You entered this thread asking for single examples of things and when they've been provided to you, you now claim 'oh shit well I guess single examples = exceptions!' Don't shift goal posts now.

Listen shithead, it's your job to prove that they can and will set their phasers to wide beam and disintegrate multiple enemies at a time. Since, you know, that's never happened in any Trek series or film. We have ONE instance of Tuvok stunning the bridge crew with a wide beam stun at close range. Wong and others on this forum have repeatedly shown why wide beam and any higher settings are useless (again, Siege of AR-558 is a good example of a time when it should have been used if it were available.). This isn't shifting goal posts, this is pointing your no-limits fallacy stupidity and assigning capabilities to Trek that have never been demonstrated or are clear outliers.

No, a phaser set on kill just kills someone.

No, a phaser set to kill disappears someone into oblivion. And you can kill thousands like that with a small supply of hand phasers, just ask Captain Tracey of USS Exeter! 'The Omega Glory'[/quote]

No, a phaser set to kill simply kills. It takes a higher setting to make somebody vanish into thin air. You can even refer to the fucking non-canon technical manual for that if you want to. And yes, when you're being attacked by primitive beings, you can kill thousands of people with phasers.

None of that matters to the lethality of the beam you twit. And the last point about 'you can only shoot at one enemy at a time' is total rubbish in light of the fact you can set it to wide-beam.

Which they don't do because... quantum?

]quote]OH NO SINGLE EXAMPLE!!1[/quote]

OH NO, YOU'RE CHOKING ON A MILLION DICKS!

We see medivacs often enough in all series. They can beam directly to sickbay in the TNG period. And thanks for condescendingly pointing out that people who get shot with multiple bullets die horribly. Wow I didn't know that.

We see medevacs quite often. How many are during active combat like I asked?

Let me ask a real life soldier what he would prefer on a modern battlefield, waiting for a medivac copter or getting an instantaneous teleport to the ER. HMMMM HARD CHOICE!

Go fuck yourself.

Oh wait - what? Are you arguing that phasers can't be used to disintegrate targets? Are you arguing that they can't be used on wide beam? Because that would be moronic.

Oh wait, are you arguing that they can just set phasers to wide beam and vaporize numerous opponents at once, despite this never fucking happening in any series? Why yes, you are. Proving that you're a fucking dumbass.

Maybe the reason why they didn't use the phasers in that fashion in those instances were because the writers were fucking stupid - did that ever occur to you? That they wanted to depict a dramatic infantry charge by the enemy which descends into a vicious melee, when they could have just killed them in seconds based on their own weapon's observed characteristics countless times before?

So it's stupid when I ask if a space battle occurred at BVR because of limitations in what they could portray in the show or because they intended to have the battle be at BVR from the beginning, but "lol, teh writers suck" is a perfectly ok reason for why there's never any instance of what you suggest. Uh-huh. Double-standard much?

Actually, spaceships in orbit would be analogous to air support, it's just that in Troopers those spaceships don't do anything other than sit there and get shot.

They don't even do that well.

"Oh no, bugs shitting blue Skittles at us! Evasive maneuvers!" *immediately crashes into three other ships and explodes*

The terrain was never suitable to protect them from the bugs. Except for the part where bugs were limited to melee and were charging them across wide-open plains and the Troopers didn't have things like mortars or artillery for area-effect weaponry or using machine guns other than those that were on the tower in that one base they got trapped in.

So why are you complaining about them not taking cover when the terrain wasn't suited for it and their enemy can't shoot back? Again, the one time they did have a barrier between them and the bugs (walls), they made use of it!

Yes, it's all a conspiracy directed towards you.

Which isn't what I said at all. Enjoy your childish trolling; congratulations, you've managed to irritate me. Now fuck off.

Maybe I'm arguing from TOS's perspective because I - get this - actually like TOS? No way, that couldn't be it at all.

Or it could be that you're ignoring everything post-TOS because it nerfs the Federation considerably?

How often does this happen? Do we know for certain that phasers during such firefights were set to kill or disrupt? Perhaps they were set to stun? Do you have examples of such firefights? There is one I remember quite distinctly in season two of DS9 where Kira is taken hostage by the Circle terrorists, Sisko Bashir that Bajoran dude and two other security guys storm the place in a rescue. They take cover behind various objects, and the terrorists open fire on them. Two of the security guards get hit and so does Bashir, but Bashir gets up and orders a beam out when he frees Kira. The security guards get beamed up as well. Looks like they were stunned to me, especially when there was no burn marks on their clothing and one was even conscious enough to order a beam out.

1) Not every battle occurs with phasers on kill, no.

2) Again, the kill setting doesn't always kill someone, at least not immediately.

3) Are you claiming that everyone ever shot with a phaser who doesn't vanish into thin air was shot on stun and not kill?

Sure, that's a valid criticism. Why don't stormtroopers wear camoflaged armour?

They do. They also have utility belts, pouches, and other shit to carry equipment with. Feddies get a little holster for their phaser and another for their tricorder. Doctors carry a plastic box with medical doodads around. Otherwise, their uniforms are inappropriate for anything more rigorous than a day at the officer. And most of them still don't have pockets.

Combat boots is something else though. TOS uniforms had boots.

Yes, they did. Unlike later eras where dress shoes were used for every occasion. TOS also had the handy feature in their uniforms that allowed them to warm themselves (I think this might have showed up in Spock's Brain) if they don't have dedicated winter gear with them. In later generations, if zapping a rock with a phaser wasn't good enough or they forgot their parka, they were shit out of luck. I have to question why such a useful feature was left out of later uniforms, along with sensible footwear.

Like when? Kirk did it to impress the locals in that episode. At various other times the ship has been used in a similar fashion - 'A Taste of Armageddon' he threatens Eminiar with destruction via the ship's weapons, in 'The Alternative Factor' and 'The Apple' Kirk has the Enterprise fire on objects that threaten them all, and in 'Bread and Circuses' Scotty uses the ship to affect the power of the capital city on the planet where Kirk and co have been taken prisoner. Other instances occurred where Kirk couldn't radio up for help, or the ship was under attack anyway, like in 'Arena'.

Ugh. They never stunned anyone from orbit again. Yes, they still shot shit from space, such as when they "blew up god" with a photorp in the movie that shall not be mentioned. Which just goes to show that I was wrong about it not being used to support infantry. But you don't seem to be differentiating between "orbital bombardment/the threat thereof" and "fire support for infantry combat".

And what about all the times when you DON'T have a starship hanging around in orbit to support you, or it's engaged in battle? What then?

Here's a hint: don't start the invasion until you have space superiority. [/quote]

Right, because nobody would ever think to invade YOU while you don't have any nearby starships. And it's not like we see numerous cases where the Enterprise is the only ship that can respond to an incident deep in Federation space- oh wait.

It's also impossible for enemy reinforcements to show up or for a trap to be sprung after you've established space superiority and begun landing troops in a heavily contested area.

How do you know it was matching speeds rather than accelerating towards it? In fact, it wasn't 'matching speeds' at all because Captain Christopher had been order to intercept it and force it down and Spock reports it was rapidly closing the distance!

Yes, that would be the "flying towards it" part, dipshit. How long do you think a rapidly accelerating fighter jet is going to keep an object in front of it at visual range while the pilot tells ground control what the UFO he's approaching looks like? He had to be slowing down and roughly matching its speed to keep from overshooting it once he intercepted it.

The Enterprise being in the atmosphere at the time is irrelevant. The interceptor being in visual range of it is irrelevant. And I have listed examples from TOS where they hit targets from tens of thousands of kilometres away in space. You seriously think a starship in orbit is going to have a tough time shooting a ship going at mach speeds when they have shot at targets going at greater velocities? Locking a tractor beam onto a target just shows they can do it.

You don't think having more of the atmosphere between the target and the starship might affect the power and scattering of phasers? You don't think having an object right there makes it easy to grab it with a tractor beam?

And yes, the ships may be traveling at greater velocities in space, but what is the relative velocity between target and shooter? That's like saying the Enterprise-D shooting at the Borg cube in Q, Who? means the Enterprise can hit targets traveling at high warp (either the target going that fast while the E-D is sublight, or vice-versa) when they were both traveling at warp and the Borg cube was directly behind the E-D and slowly overtaking it.

You're a fucking idiot. You entered this thread asking for 'single instances' of things Trek can do. When someone points out these single instances you get pissy and shift goal posts. I don't have to show them using these things every fucking episode, once is enough!

No, you're a fucking asshat who declares the Federation can use anything and everything we've ever seen, even if it made a single appearance almost a hundred years prior to the current setting and it was never used again despite multiple instances where it would have been really, REALLY fucking handy to have. Like when they were stranded on a planet for months with nothing but hand phasers to fight the enemy with.

Furthermore phaser rifles were seen numerous times in TNG and DS9, so on that regard you're totally wrong.

Maybe if I had "we never see phaser rifles ever" I'd be wrong, but since I said we rarely see them except in the hands of the main cast and the majority of redshirts we see in combat are armed with Type II phasers instead of rifles, I'm not wrong. You're just a dishonest shit who cherrypicks and then makes no-limits fallacies.

As for the other things, maybe they weren't available at the time or maybe they had them but had no ammunition or power for them. Who knows? And who cares.

We care. Because it's fucking relevent. And if they had no ammo/power for them, you'd think we'd at least see one sitting in a corner or hear someone mention "boy, it sure would be handy if we had another power pack for that weapon that could easily beat our enemies if we could just deploy it".

But hey, you're waxing moronic over the whole thing, so now every redshirt has rifles that teleport bullets through walls, personal shielding, and bazookas that shoot phaser beams that vaporize entire platoons of the enemy at once while orbiting starships surgically annihilate the enemy from above. Don't get jizz on your keyboard.

Your entire contribution to this thread has been to attack Trek because Starwars888 made a few boasts of what Trek's capabilities were and how these capabilities allow it to dominate Mass Effect. Well it turns out those capabilities are canonical. You can't ignore them nor can you refute them. All you can do is whine about them, and it grows tiresome.

Fuck your mother.

I pointed out how he was wrong about something things in his argument for Trek (I don't even have a dog in this fight; I'm not familiar with ME at all, except what has been discussed here.) and you suddenly start shitting out stupid no-limits fallacies about how the redshirts have every ability ever demonstrated in the entirety of Star Trek, even when it makes no sense, or is an obvious outlier, or takes place under totally different circumstances.

I'm done here. You can go back to masturbating about your Trek fantasies. I'll be spending my time with more worthwhile things.

[seanrobertson]

He did provide a canon example. You know what, he even replied to your demand for such evidence, and you completely ignored him.

Except his "canon" example was the tech manual.

Horseshit. Do you even know who Chris means by "Sean Robertson"?

I'll give you a hint: I look at him in the mirror every day, and he also posted this message earlier in the thread.

Kindly explain how I invoke the TM.

[Ford Prefect]

Except his "canon" example was the tech manual.

Setting aside that this wasn't what Stofsk was talking about, as Sean just told you, but the Tech Manuals are canon. I posted a quote from Harry Leng - senior director of the Viacom Consumer Products Interactive division - to that effect only a couple of pages ago.

[Stofsk]

Prove it.

I can't find the Trek Miss videos on youtube any more. Pity.

So you were going to 'prove redshirts always miss' by using someone else's work? Nevermind the fact that I asked for redshirts which is a TOS term, and the Trek miss videos cherry picked examples from the TNG era.

Redshirts don't mean the security guys from TNG who never wore a red shirt, by the way.

Listen shithead, it's your job to prove that they can and will set their phasers to wide beam and disintegrate multiple enemies at a time. Since, you know, that's never happened in any Trek series or film. We have ONE instance of Tuvok stunning the bridge crew with a wide beam stun at close range. Wong and others on this forum have repeatedly shown why wide beam and any higher settings are useless (again, Siege of AR-558 is a good example of a time when it should have been used if it were available.). This isn't shifting goal posts, this is pointing your no-limits fallacy stupidity and assigning capabilities to Trek that have never been demonstrated or are clear outliers.

That instance of Tuvok stunning the bridge crew is not the only instance. We also see Worf use his phaser set to level 16 and wide-beam to create a tunnel in a rock wall that was several metres long and wide enough for three grown adults to crawl through. This was in 'Chain of Command part one' and needless to say, if you couldn't set the phaser beam to wide they wouldn't have been able to do what was observed on screen (even if the beam itself did not appear all that wide, its effect on the rock wall was).

No, a phaser set to kill simply kills.

No, a phaser set to kill causes that disruption effect you fucking ignorant dipshit. Numerous times in TOS they specifically set their phaser to 'Kill' setting. It was in TNG when they introduced numerical levels, but that doesn't mean anything. Phasers have multiple levels and settings. You can use it to heat rocks up for fuck's sake. You can use that 'heat' setting to hurt or kill someone, which is what you're thinking of, but the 'kill' setting explicitly refers to the disruption effect we see all the time. (it's also called 'disrupt' setting in 'Obsession')

It takes a higher setting to make somebody vanish into thin air. You can even refer to the fucking non-canon technical manual for that if you want to.

Already dealt with above, but if Ford's quote is true then hey, guess that tech manual isn't non-canon afterall.

None of that matters to the lethality of the beam you twit. And the last point about 'you can only shoot at one enemy at a time' is total rubbish in light of the fact you can set it to wide-beam.

Which they don't do because... quantum?

They do use it you fuckwit.

We see medivacs often enough in all series. They can beam directly to sickbay in the TNG period. And thanks for condescendingly pointing out that people who get shot with multiple bullets die horribly. Wow I didn't know that.

We see medevacs quite often. How many are during active combat like I asked?

'The Circle' DS9, which I already gave as an example. 'Tapestry' where Picard gets shot and is immediately beamed to sickbay. 'A Private Little War' where Spock gets shot and is beamed up seconds later. 'Best of Both Worlds part two' where Data and Worf rescue Picard. I'm sure you'll refer to these events as 'outliers'.

Let me ask a real life soldier what he would prefer on a modern battlefield, waiting for a medivac copter or getting an instantaneous teleport to the ER. HMMMM HARD CHOICE!

Go fuck yourself.

So it's stupid when I ask if a space battle occurred at BVR because of limitations in what they could portray in the show or because they intended to have the battle be at BVR from the beginning,

Yep. You want to know why? Because not only is your criticism totally baseless, what you're actually complaining about are the special effects being consistent with the written dialogue. That's monumentally stupid and betrays a clear sign of bias on your part. No way could trek visual ever be consistent with the written dialogue! Trek sux, hur hur hur!

Double-standard much?

The terrain was never suitable to protect them from the bugs. Except for the part where bugs were limited to melee and were charging them across wide-open plains and the Troopers didn't have things like mortars or artillery for area-effect weaponry or using machine guns other than those that were on the tower in that one base they got trapped in.

So why are you complaining about them not taking cover when the terrain wasn't suited for it and their enemy can't shoot back?

I said that redshirts take cover and manoeuvre into advantageous firing positions. In any case, I concede that troopers can take cover when it's advantageous for them.

Yes, it's all a conspiracy directed towards you.

Which isn't what I said at all. Enjoy your childish trolling; congratulations, you've managed to irritate me. Now fuck off.

Not only were you objectively wrong about me only using TOS in this argument, but you even implied I was doing so to deliberately egg you on.

Maybe I'm arguing from TOS's perspective because I - get this - actually like TOS? No way, that couldn't be it at all.

Or it could be that you're ignoring everything post-TOS because it nerfs the Federation considerably?

Nerfs them how fucktard? The part where 'The Wounded' points out they can engage at 300,000 km ranges for their torpedoes? The part where Picard used his warp engines to attack a enemy ship which had limited light-speed sensors? Both of which would utterly devastate a Mass Effect ship.

Oh yeah, that's totally 'nerfed'. Nice of you to concede though that TOS displays much better combat implications than TNG. But really the whole point of this thread was a versus match up between Mass Effect and the Federation. If you don't know anything about either setting, which is clear that you don't, then fuck off.

1) Not every battle occurs with phasers on kill, no.

2) Again, the kill setting doesn't always kill someone, at least not immediately.

3) Are you claiming that everyone ever shot with a phaser who doesn't vanish into thin air was shot on stun and not kill?

1) Good.
2) Prove it you fuckwit. I am sick of you saying various things about Star Trek when it's clear you have no idea what you're fucking talking about.
3) No, I'm telling you to prove your claim that 'packing crates' stop phaser hits set to kill. I'm not even antagonistic about this point, I'm sure there are examples which show inconsistent firepower effects. I would just like you to fucking back up your claims.

Sure, that's a valid criticism. Why don't stormtroopers wear camoflaged armour?

They do.

When? Were they invisible in Endor or something? PS the Clonetroopers seen in RotS are Clonetroopers. Not Stormtroopers.

They also have utility belts, pouches, and other shit to carry equipment with.

You mean just the utility belt. There are no pouches on a stormtrooper armour because his armour is made out of plastic. There are no pockets either. It's just a belt. A modern day soldier carries more crap than a stormtrooper. The only time we do see them carry a pack is in Star Wars on Tattooine. BUT ONLY SINGLE EXAMPLE IT MUST BE A OUTLIER HURHURHUR, at least that's what your fucked up logic would suggest.

Ugh. They never stunned anyone from orbit again.

So? It doesn't matter that it only happened one time. 'A Piece of the Action' still existed in the canon, what occurred still occurred. You don't magically lose a capability just because it only happens once.

Yes, they still shot shit from space, such as when they "blew up god" with a photorp in the movie that shall not be mentioned. Which just goes to show that I was wrong about it not being used to support infantry. But you don't seem to be differentiating between "orbital bombardment/the threat thereof" and "fire support for infantry combat".

Which is why I referred to the two TOS examples of the phaser cannon from 'The Cage' and the grenade/mortar launcher from 'Arena'.

Right, because nobody would ever think to invade YOU while you don't have any nearby starships. And it's not like we see numerous cases where the Enterprise is the only ship that can respond to an incident deep in Federation space- oh wait.

It's also impossible for enemy reinforcements to show up or for a trap to be sprung after you've established space superiority and begun landing troops in a heavily contested area.

It's not impossible. But the nature of warfare being what it is, air power is crucial for land operations to succeed – that's true today. So if you launch an invasion of a planet and your fleet overhead is destroyed by a trap, then the guys down on the ground are completely fucked. There is literally nothing they can do. That requires that orbiting fleet to have established space superiority before mounting ground campaigns.

Yes, that would be the "flying towards it" part, dipshit. How long do you think a rapidly accelerating fighter jet is going to keep an object in front of it at visual range while the pilot tells ground control what the UFO he's approaching looks like? He had to be slowing down and roughly matching its speed to keep from overshooting it once he intercepted it.

Except the Enterprise was engaging its engines and climbing in altitude, so it wasn't just standing still. So Captain Christopher wouldn't have overshot it at all as he was said by Spock to rapidly closing in distance. You can't rapidly close the distance if you're matching your speed with a target!

You don't think having more of the atmosphere between the target and the starship might affect the power and scattering of phasers?

How about you prove this claim? Phasers have been fired in the atomsphere of many worlds without any oberservable scattering effect, so I'd be interested in what you use to base this claim on.

You don't think having an object right there makes it easy to grab it with a tractor beam?

Of course I do. Although it's not just 'right there', but travelling at high speeds while the Enterprise is climbing in altitude. At the very least I don't see how the Enterprise would have great difficulty in shooting down such vehicles when phasers go at high velocities themselves – refer to 'Journey to Babel' where the Enterprise shoots at a ship 75,000km away and hits it in seconds.

And yes, the ships may be traveling at greater velocities in space, but what is the relative velocity between target and shooter? That's like saying the Enterprise-D shooting at the Borg cube in Q, Who? means the Enterprise can hit targets traveling at high warp (either the target going that fast while the E-D is sublight, or vice-versa) when they were both traveling at warp and the Borg cube was directly behind the E-D and slowly overtaking it.

How about all those examples from TOS that I gave, such as the warp strafing example? Oh right, you like to pretend TOS never happened and is irrelevant to this thread and full of outliers.

No, you're a fucking asshat who declares the Federation can use anything and everything we've ever seen, even if it made a single appearance almost a hundred years prior to the current setting and it was never used again despite multiple instances where it would have been really, REALLY fucking handy to have. Like when they were stranded on a planet for months with nothing but hand phasers to fight the enemy with.

Logically, if they can't use something it might be due to them not having it. But the reason why they don't have it is not known. You're assuming they stopped using such devices full stop. I object to this as absence of evidence does not necessarily mean evidence of absence. There could be many reasons why they don't use the same exact mortar from TOS in DS9, up to and including the sensible speculation that 'hey they just ran out of ammo and haven't been resupplied for awhile' or 'they may have had a mortar but it was destroyed or is inoperative and they can't use a new one because they haven't been resupplied in awhile', or 'the characters are fucking stupid.' Although I don't like that last one.

And this whole 'current setting' line is total bullshit anyway. It hasn't been the 'current setting' for at least a decade. TNG ended in the mid 90s. DS9 ended in the late 90s. The 'current setting' is the J.J. Abrams remake. Whining about how TNG is the 'current setting' and is thus 'the default setting' in versus debates is asinine. It's just as valid to call upon TOS for examples as it is for TNG, since both of them are available.

Furthermore phaser rifles were seen numerous times in TNG and DS9, so on that regard you're totally wrong.

Maybe if I had "we never see phaser rifles ever" I'd be wrong,

*snip protestations over phaser cannons and mortars and rifles*

It doesn't matter that they're only seen once. These things don't have to be seen more than once for us to know that they have the capability to employ them.

So why DON'T they employ them ever again, even when it would have made a lot of sense and been really handy to do so? Are you really being THAT fucking stupid? Why not just say that the redshirts can clearly replicate Davy Crockett tactical nukes and use them to wipe out the entire posing army?

Why don't they employ what ever again? I was replying to what you said about phaser cannons, mortars AND phaser rifles. And I even said that TNG and DS9 brought the phaser rifle back with a vengeance. We see everyone on the Enterprise-E carry rifles when fighting the borg for fuck's sake.

You're just a dishonest shit who cherrypicks and then makes no-limits fallacies.

It's 'cherry picking' to cite examples from TOS is it? You're full of shit. And I didn't make any no-limits fallacies, as everything I've said has had cited examples from numerous episodes. These capabilities have been shown and used, I'm not inventing capabilities the Federation does not have. It is you who is claiming that the devices and weaponry we have observed are outliers and would never ever make a reappearance. Such things could easily be used 'off-scene' it just requires a little imagination. But I forget, trek sux hur hur hur.

But hey, you're waxing moronic over the whole thing, so now every redshirt has rifles that teleport bullets through walls, personal shielding, and bazookas that shoot phaser beams that vaporize entire platoons of the enemy at once while orbiting starships surgically annihilate the enemy from above. Don't get jizz on your keyboard.

Riiiight. Despite the fact I've said none of that shit you've misattributed to me, I'm the one with the masturbation fantasy because I actually know what I'm talking about and keep citing examples from the shows, whereas you're the one who introduced Starship Troopers of all things to demonstrate how Trek would get owned on the ground. Not only was that off-topic, it's fucking wrong too.

Fuck your mother.

I pointed out how he was wrong about something things in his argument for Trek

Actually you didn't. Everything you've said has not been supported at all and has been countered by not just me but others in this thread.

(I don't even have a dog in this fight; I'm not familiar with ME at all, except what has been discussed here.)

So what the fuck are you doing in this thread beside getting your 'hurhur trek sux' board quota in? It's not like you have an argument or anything.

and you suddenly start shitting out stupid no-limits fallacies about how the redshirts have every ability ever demonstrated in the entirety of Star Trek, even when it makes no sense, or is an obvious outlier, or takes place under totally different circumstances.

Bullshit.

I'm done here. You can go back to masturbating about your Trek fantasies. I'll be spending my time with more worthwhile things.

Good, fuck off.

[Star Wars 888]

Mass relays are separate from mass effect drive FTL. Any ship, as long as they know to send the activation signal, should be able to use them.

And no, the Federation isn't destroying the Citadel. It's made of the same stuff as the mass relays, one of which survived a supernova. Capturing it is highly unlikely as well due to the inferiority of Federation infantry even compared with C-Sec, but the Federation would have the advantage of transporters. However, a simple mineral in Star Trek: Insurrection was able to interfere with transporters, so I would not trust them to get through the 13 meter thick supernova-proof shell of the Citadel.

The Citadel could still be damaged by a dreadnought firing at it for days according to the Codex.

A Federation flee firing at it for it for days might destroy it, but reinforements will likely attack them and withou the relays the Federation fleet would also be screwed logistically.

Btw, what's with the big debate over Star Trek's ground capabilities? Does anyone here seriously think tha Federation ground troops can match the Citadel races' armies? In ground combat the Federation gets massively stomped on.

[Stofsk]

No, that's about the Federation versus Starship Troopers on the ground. Federation versus Mass Effect on the ground, Federation gets creamed.

[Omeganian]

Mass relays are separate from mass effect drive FTL. Any ship, as long as they know to send the activation signal, should be able to use them.

And no, the Federation isn't destroying the Citadel. It's made of the same stuff as the mass relays, one of which survived a supernova. Capturing it is highly unlikely as well due to the inferiority of Federation infantry even compared with C-Sec, but the Federation would have the advantage of transporters. However, a simple mineral in Star Trek: Insurrection was able to interfere with transporters, so I would not trust them to get through the 13 meter thick supernova-proof shell of the Citadel.

The Citadel could still be damaged by a dreadnought firing at it for days according to the Codex.

A link, please. In any event, it is something in the low gigaton range of pure kinetic energy, well concentrated.

A Federation flee firing at it for it for days might destroy it, but reinforements will likely attack them and without the relays the Federation fleet would also be screwed logistically.

If it's possible, then the Reapers might have programmed the Citadel Relay to bring them out automatically in case of serious damage (it is the logical thing to do). Now THEN the Feds'll be screwed up.