Warp 10 + Cardassian Dreadnaught Missile = Pwnage?

[Rihannsu Science Officer]

In Voyager, for those who never watched it, the crew experimented with Warp 10 travel, which unfortunately had disastrous effects on human genetic structures. In another episode of Voyager, an old Cardassian missile found itself in the Delta Quadrant.

Question: Why has nobody in the VS. debates though about the idea of slapping a Warp 10 drive onto a Cardassian Dreadnaught? They don't have humanoid crews, so no fear of weird anomalous mutations, and infinite speed vastly exceeds even the wankiest estimates of Imperial speed capabilities. Such missiles could even be scaled up to dozens of times the size of the original Cardassian weapon and cloaked so they could be used against ISD's or, more likely, against smaller Imperial cruisers.

Of course, such a project would require a Federation-Cardassian alliance and probably require treaty negotiations with the Romulans, such as putting the project under the command of the Tal Shiar or a Romulan general (to make sure the cloaking devices destined for the Dreadnaught missiles didn't find their way onto Federation ships) but once the political issues are ironed out, there's no technical reason it wouldn't work.

Also, the missiles could be fired from almost anywhere, uninhabited planets, asteroid fields, cloaked defense stations (if the Empire decides to fuck with the Klingons or Romulans) so even a massive BDZ'ing operation won't necessarily root out all the missiles.

P.S. I'm not a physics major, can someone tell me exactly how much firepower we'd be looking at if a scaled-up version of the Dreadnaught missile were to contain, say, 1 MT of matter and 1 MT of antimatter?

[Darth Servo]

Question: Why has nobody in the VS. debates though about the idea of slapping a Warp 10 drive onto a Cardassian Dreadnaught?

Maybe because you still need someone to steer the thing?

They don't have humanoid crews, so no fear of weird anomalous mutations, and infinite speed vastly exceeds even the wankiest estimates of Imperial speed capabilities.

Warp 10 was hardly "infinite". When the experimental warp 10 shuttle it was only a short trip away from Voyager with its standard warp drive. And as I recall, "infinite speed" was defined in Trek as "being everywhere simultaneously" which is hardly what we saw with that shuttle.

Such missiles could even be scaled up to dozens of times the size of the original Cardassian weapon

No, it can't. There is ZERO evidence of scaling the thing up at all. Size DOES matter.

and cloaked so they could be used against ISD's or, more likely, against smaller Imperial cruisers.

Mixing and matching technology hoping for the best from each with no side effects or technologies interfering with each other?

Of course, such a project would require a Federation-Cardassian alliance and probably require treaty negotiations with the Romulans, such as putting the project under the command of the Tal Shiar or a Romulan general (to make sure the cloaking devices destined for the Dreadnaught missiles didn't find their way onto Federation ships) but once the political issues are ironed out,

IOW, about as likely as Mike Wong becomming a fundie.

there's no technical reason it wouldn't work.

Yes there is. See above.

Also, the missiles could be fired from almost anywhere, uninhabited planets, asteroid fields, cloaked defense stations

But knowing the Federation, they'll test the thing on one of their own inhabited colonies first.

(if the Empire decides to fuck with the Klingons or Romulans) so even a massive BDZ'ing operation won't necessarily root out all the missiles.

You think they'll hide them miles beneath the crust? Perhaps even in the mantle because THAT is what it would take to avoid destruction from an attack that destroyes ALL means of production and natural resources. Natural resources includes underground mines and oceans.

P.S. I'm not a physics major, can someone tell me exactly how much firepower we'd be looking at if a scaled-up version of the Dreadnaught missile were to contain, say, 1 MT of matter and 1 MT of antimatter?

e=mc^2. Plug 2 MT in for m, the speed of light for c and away you go.

[mr friendly guy]

1) the warp 10 thing required some special dilithium found only in that part of the Delta quadrant.

2) warp 10 somehow occupies all points in the universe simultaneously. They don't know how to make it stop at one point, so targetting is a bitch.

3) 1 MT of matter and antimatter ( presumably you mean 1 X 10^6 tonnes of matter and antimmatter) since MT can also be used to denote megatons of TNT, ie its a measure of energy yield rather than mass.

Well E=mc^2 is your friend. Energy is equal to 2 x 10^9 kg x (3 x 10^8 m/s)^2

This of course assumes a 100% yield (which isn't going to happen), but it gives you an upper limit.

[Darth Fanboy]

Star Wars already has one of these things, it's called a Galaxy Gun.

[Rihannsu Science Officer]

Question: Why has nobody in the VS. debates though about the idea of slapping a Warp 10 drive onto a Cardassian Dreadnaught?

Maybe because you still need someone to steer the thing?

It's a MISSILE. When was the last time you saw someone steering a cruise missile?

They don't have humanoid crews, so no fear of weird anomalous mutations, and infinite speed vastly exceeds even the wankiest estimates of Imperial speed capabilities.

Warp 10 was hardly "infinite". The experimental warp 10 shuttle was only a short trip away from Voyager with its standard warp drive. And as I recall, "infinite speed" was defined in Trek as "being everywhere simultaneously" which is hardly what we saw with that shuttle.

I don't remember too much about that episode, can't refute too many of your claims here. I'll have to do some rechecking and probably get the DVD Season 5 I think, but I'm pretty sure Warp 10 is infinite.

Such missiles could even be scaled up to dozens of times the size of the original Cardassian weapon

No, it can't. There is ZERO evidence of scaling the thing up at all. Size DOES matter.

Size matters if you want the thing's hull integrity to be strong, yeah. We're talking about a missile that's DESIGNED to blow up when it strikes an ISD, not a scaled-up warship. The only thing we have to be concerned with is keeping the matter and antimatter separated until the missile strikes the ISD. And this missile won't have to worry about gravity if it's made in space, unlike the 50 foot tall woman or the ant the size of a tank.

and cloaked so they could be used against ISD's or, more likely, against smaller Imperial cruisers.

Mixing and matching technology hoping for the best from each with no side effects or technologies interfering with each other?

Cloaking devices have gone onto loads of things that they're not designed for. The mines in DS9, the Enterprise wasn't made to accomodate a cloak but the Pegasus' cloak worked fine on it, the Cardassian warships in the TDIC fleet (Cardassian ships don't use cloaks for the most part) so it's not a leap in logic to use it on a Cardassian dreadnought.

Of course, such a project would require a Federation-Cardassian alliance and probably require treaty negotiations with the Romulans, such as putting the project under the command of the Tal Shiar or a Romulan general (to make sure the cloaking devices destined for the Dreadnaught missiles didn't find their way onto Federation ships) but once the political issues are ironed out,

IOW, about as likely as Mike Wong becoming a fundie.

The Romulans don't want to live under Imperial fascism any more than the Federation. A state that signed away its cloaking technology won't mind letting the Tal Shiar command an Allied defense operation. And the Cardassians are in a poor position to resist after the curbstomping they got in WYLB. Their major contribution would be the Dreadnaught missile technology.

there's no technical reason it wouldn't work.

Yes there is. See above.

See what?

Also, the missiles could be fired from almost anywhere, uninhabited planets, asteroid fields, cloaked defense stations

But knowing the Federation, they'll test the thing on one of their own inhabited colonies first.

More likely on some barren rock in the cosmic boondocks. Not even Klingons are that dismissive of human(oid) life.

(if the Empire decides to fuck with the Klingons or Romulans) so even a massive BDZ'ing operation won't necessarily root out all the missiles.

You think they'll hide them miles beneath the crust? Perhaps even in the mantle because THAT is what it would take to avoid destruction from an attack that destroyes ALL means of production and natural resources. Natural resources includes underground mines and oceans.

No, I mentioned putting the missile bases off planet, in defense stations and asteroid fields, and uninhabited rocks as well as defended planets.

1) the warp 10 thing required some special dilithium found only in that part of the Delta quadrant.

Shit. Didn't remember that. I do remember the Enterprise using a Borg transwarp conduit in Descent (TNG), perhaps a ship with a copy of Voyager's log could use existing conduit to get to a place near the planet with the special dilithium or, more efficiently(?), try to modify ordinary dilithium?

2) warp 10 somehow occupies all points in the universe simultaneously. They don't know how to make it stop at one point, so targetting is a bitch.

Theoretically, couldn't they slow it down ever so slightly, to the point where it's faster than anything the Imperial forces can throw at them but not infinite so it can be targetted? Might still be dangerous for humanoid travel, but it can still be equipped with a warhead. Or slap a transwarp drive on it. (The Federation's transwarp drive is dangerous, ships with it don't last but a modified Dreadnaught would only have to last long enough to hit an ISD. Also, some can be left warp 10 and fired into the Imperial galaxy, where they can wreak havoc beyond a terrorist's wildest wet dreams.

3) 1 MT of matter and antimatter ( presumably you mean 1 X 10^6 tonnes of matter and antimmatter) since MT can also be used to denote megatons of TNT, ie its a measure of energy yield rather than mass.

Well E=mc^2 is your friend. Energy is equal to 2 x 10^9 kg x (3 x 10^8 m/s)^2

This of course assumes a 100% yield (which isn't going to happen), but it gives you an upper limit.

So the original 2000 kg Cardassian warhead would be 2E3 * 3E8 *3E8 = 1.8E20 J? And if we scale it up to an order of 50 it'd be 9E21 J? I just need to know I'm doing this right.

Star Wars already has one of these things, it's called a Galaxy Gun.

The Federation doesn't need one of those, they just need one big enough to take out an ISD. Of course, if it can render an Imperial planet uninhabitable that's nice too.

[Stark]

Hum. Proof the missile will survive the trip (ST things break at high speed, see VOY)? Proof they can navigate it? Proof it can be scaled up? Proof it can be cloaked? Proof Fed can make enough antimatter to build many? Proof it can penetrate the obvious countermeasure, interdictor fields?

Its retarded to say 'OMGzor lol of cousres you can claokzor a scaled up, warp 10, chockers with antimatter dradnoughtzor k thx n00b!'. If you've got something to base that on, go for your life. The best part is the 'render Imperial planet uninhabitable' part. I know you were wanking pretty hard, but honestly. They wouldn't kill the (alien, 100% evil, about to kill them, zombie) Borg, so why would they try and kill hundreds of trillions of innocent humans?

[Praxis]

I don't remember too much about that episode, can't refute too many of your claims here. I'll have to do some rechecking and probably get the DVD Season 5 I think, but I'm pretty sure Warp 10 is infinite.

This is a known inconsistency.

In TNG it is stated originally that Warp 10 = infinite speed.

However, in the TNG Finale we see the Galaxy-X Enterprise from the future, that is capable of Warp 13.

And in Voyager, Warp 10 is faster than Warp 9, not infinite.

[Praxis]

P.S. I'm not a physics major, can someone tell me exactly how much firepower we'd be looking at if a scaled-up version of the Dreadnaught missile were to contain, say, 1 MT of matter and 1 MT of antimatter?

You realize that's the equivilant of nearly seven hundred thousand photon torpedoes, right?

[Rihannsu Science Officer]

Hum. Proof the missile will survive the trip (ST things break at high speed, see VOY)? Proof they can navigate it? Proof it can be scaled up? Proof it can be cloaked? Proof Fed can make enough antimatter to build many? Proof it can penetrate the obvious countermeasure, interdictor fields?

Its retarded to say 'OMGzor lol of cousres you can claokzor a scaled up, warp 10, chockers with antimatter dradnoughtzor k thx n00b!'. If you've got something to base that on, go for your life. The best part is the 'render Imperial planet uninhabitable' part. I know you were wanking pretty hard, but honestly. They wouldn't kill the (alien, 100% evil, about to kill them, zombie) Borg, so why would they try and kill hundreds of trillions of innocent humans?

What kind of proof do you need? As I said before, cloaks work on almost anything (mines, Fed and Cardassian ships that weren't built with cloasing devices in mind, take your pick.) As for survivability, it doesn't have to last that long, just long enough to get from the missile station to an ISD, it's not a ship on a voyage. As for scaling it up, they'd have to experiment with scaling it up 2x, 5x, 10x, 100x, find something that works. I just mentioned 50x as an example. As someone pointed out, this beast has the firepower of a whole fuckload of photorps, it should overwhelm most shields (I'm a Trekkie, I've only seen the original trilogy and that was months ago, refresh my memory with regard to interdictor fields? Can they be overwhelmed with brute force? If so the missile can be programmed to go off if its sensors detect an interdictor field or ISD. I only know things like BDZ's and Galaxy Guns from this site, so excuse my ignorance from the SW side.) Don't worry too much about navigation, who worries about navigating a heat seeking missile? Who worries about navigating a missile programmed to move in the direction its sensors show an ISD? And about making many, without greater info on the Federation's industrial capacity I can't say. As for mass killing, the Klingons and Romulans and whatever allies the Federation has will have them too. The Imps will be tied down in relief efforts, rebuilding their planets and stuff (the people will rapidly lose faith if their government can't protect them. To be fair, the same plague will befall the Federation, but they're fighting for their survival, the Empire, just after a few extra planets, may be forced to re-evaluate it's cost-benefit ratio. Think Vietnam.)

[Master of Ossus]

This is a known inconsistency.

In TNG it is stated originally that Warp 10 = infinite speed.

However, in the TNG Finale we see the Galaxy-X Enterprise from the future, that is capable of Warp 13.

And in Voyager, Warp 10 is faster than Warp 9, not infinite.

Also, in "Where No Man has been Before," Geordi states clearly that they're passing warp ten.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I don't know much about the industrial capacity of the Star Trek races, but how many of these weapons, which require a million tons of antimatter each, could they make? Especially after they start losing major planets?

[Praxis]

Hum. Proof the missile will survive the trip (ST things break at high speed, see VOY)? Proof they can navigate it? Proof it can be scaled up? Proof it can be cloaked? Proof Fed can make enough antimatter to build many? Proof it can penetrate the obvious countermeasure, interdictor fields?

Its retarded to say 'OMGzor lol of cousres you can claokzor a scaled up, warp 10, chockers with antimatter dradnoughtzor k thx n00b!'. If you've got something to base that on, go for your life. The best part is the 'render Imperial planet uninhabitable' part. I know you were wanking pretty hard, but honestly. They wouldn't kill the (alien, 100% evil, about to kill them, zombie) Borg, so why would they try and kill hundreds of trillions of innocent humans?

What kind of proof do you need? As I said before, cloaks work on almost anything (mines, Fed and Cardassian ships that weren't built with cloasing devices in mind, take your pick.) As for survivability, it doesn't have to last that long, just long enough to get from the missile station to an ISD, it's not a ship on a voyage.

For cloaks: There seems to be a size limit on cloaks, I highly doubt you could put a standard cloak on something much larger than a warbird. (1.4 km) Thats why we don't see cloaking starbases

Survivability:
So? It really depends on what definition of warp 10 we're using.

If we use the early TNG "infinite speed", you have to prove it would survive for a SECOND, since it passes through every point in the universe in an instant. I doubt there are many ships that can survive an impact with EVERY OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE at once...

If you're using the "faster than warp 9", late TNG/Voyager definition, well then, the ISD will STILL have plenty of time to move.

As for scaling it up, they'd have to experiment with scaling it up 2x, 5x, 10x, 100x, find something that works.

Did you even read the page? Scaling it up 2x will increase the volume 4x. The ship just lost a ton of speed and became much slower at warp. 5x increases the volume by 25x!

I just mentioned 50x as an example. As someone pointed out, this beast has the firepower of a whole fuckload of photorps, it should overwhelm most shields

Nonono, I wasn't supporting you. You asked how much firepower 2 million tons converted into raw energy was, I told you. You just made up that number.

How powerful was the original Dreadnaught torpedo? Because unless it was already as powerful as several THOUSAND photon torpedoes, scaling it up 50x still shouldn't give it that kind of capacity, even if it was possible (which it obviously isn't). Remember, every individual atom of antimatter and matter must be individually seperated by a force field- thats why the huge (the thing is what, two-three meters long? You can fit spock in one easily!) Photon Torpedo only carries a mere 3 kilograms!


And 50x is just insane, you're talking about building a Starbase-sized missle to take out an ISD?

(I'm a Trekkie, I've only seen the original trilogy and that was months ago, refresh my memory with regard to interdictor fields? Can they be overwhelmed with brute force? If so the missile can be programmed to go off if its sensors detect an interdictor field or ISD.

Interdiction fields "ground" ships and prevent FTL flight. How are you going to overwhelm that?

I only know things like BDZ's and Galaxy Guns from this site, so excuse my ignorance from the SW side.) Don't worry too much about navigation, who worries about navigating a heat seeking missile?

*Praxis watches in amusement as heat-seeking starbased-sized missle flies into the sun*

Who worries about navigating a missile programmed to move in the direction its sensors show an ISD?

Please tell me you're faking ignorance or something.
You have to program the thing to know where it is in the galaxy, to be able to recognize what an ISD is, to know how to avoid things in its way, to be able to navigate between STARS, etc!

This whole concept is ridiculous. Your whole theory is about building THOUSANDS of starbase-sized autopiloted missles and sending each one after an ISD! Dude, when you've got missles that are bigger and more expensive than their targets, it's just ridiculous.

This is like firing a nuclear missle to take out a single tank.

And what happens if the ISD shoots the missle? Pop goes the antimatter balloon!
And besides. What if you were the captain of that ISD, and your sensors officer said, "Sir, a missle larger than our ship and loaded with antimatter is bearing down on us at a high warp, and should reach us in about half an hour"? Do you think he's gonna say, "Oh, great, well let's just have tea and hope it doesn't hit us..."? No, more like, "Get out of here, plot a course to," etc etc. One hyperjump and the ISD is out of the missle's sensor range.

Warp is too slow for a guided missle, even warp 10 (if you mean Voyager and late TNG warp 10, which is the one that Voyager achieved. Infinite warp 10 has never been achieved so the Feds don't have that tech). It's like trying to shoot a supersonic airplane with a grenade strapped to an arrow.

And about making many, without greater info on the Federation's industrial capacity I can't say.

Great, let's bankrupt the Federation by building five or ten of these things, try our best to kill five or ten ISD's and pray the captains don't say, "Uh, jump to hyperspace" when a missle larger than they are flies at them (or hope they don't just SHOOT the missle, what with all that antimatter aboard!), and if we get lucky and take out five or ten ISD's, then the Empire gets annoyed and sends a hundred to take out a now bankrupt Federation. WOW! Brilliant strategy!

As for mass killing, the Klingons and Romulans and whatever allies the Federation has will have them too. The Imps will be tied down in relief efforts, rebuilding their planets and stuff (the people will rapidly lose faith if their government can't protect them. To be fair, the same plague will befall the Federation, but they're fighting for their survival, the Empire, just after a few extra planets,

Uh, wait a sec, what?

Okay, we're assuming there is a wormhole between the SW galaxy and ST galaxy, correct?

So, the klingons will go into the wormhole, magically get past the CGT sensors and fleets of ships guarding the wormhole, come out on the other side, and slowly warp (the whole time being picked up by sensors, by Imperial ships that are well over a thousand times faster) to a nearby planet, show up, do SERIOUS DAMAGE (as we saw in DS9, a hit-and-run usually doesn't even succeed in destroying a single base, let alone seriously damage the PLANET)- meaning an hour or so of bombardment- straight through the planetary shield, which should easily repel their firepower for weeks, while Imperial forces don't even bother to hyperdrive over and protect their planets?


Noooo way.

Firstly, how do they get in Imperial space without being wiped out?
Secondly, how do they go around damaging Imperial worlds so fast, when the Imperials can:
A) Attack planets over a thousand times faster
B) Have enough ships to attack and defend at the same time
C) Outrun them to defend planets
D) Detect them with sensors several hours before they arrive at the target
?
Thirdly, how do they get through planetary shields to do this damage?
Fourth, why would they leave their entire galaxy unprotected?

may be forced to re-evaluate it's cost-benefit ratio. Think Vietnam.)

Heck no, you need to consider this about the missles! Cost-benefit ration. Building starbase sized missles to take out single ships. Wow, that's economical.

[Stark]

Hum. Proof the missile will survive the trip (ST things break at high speed, see VOY)? Proof they can navigate it? Proof it can be scaled up? Proof it can be cloaked? Proof Fed can make enough antimatter to build many? Proof it can penetrate the obvious countermeasure, interdictor fields?

Its retarded to say 'OMGzor lol of cousres you can claokzor a scaled up, warp 10, chockers with antimatter dradnoughtzor k thx n00b!'. If you've got something to base that on, go for your life. The best part is the 'render Imperial planet uninhabitable' part. I know you were wanking pretty hard, but honestly. They wouldn't kill the (alien, 100% evil, about to kill them, zombie) Borg, so why would they try and kill hundreds of trillions of innocent humans?

What kind of proof do you need? As I said before, cloaks work on almost anything (mines, Fed and Cardassian ships that weren't built with cloasing devices in mind, take your pick.)

Here's a hint - repeating your baseless claim ISN'T proof. Any examples of cloaked warp 10 ships? No? No shit. Even cloaked transwarp ships? Cloaked slipstream ships? Hmmm?

As for survivability, it doesn't have to last that long, just long enough to get from the missile station to an ISD, it's not a ship on a voyage.

You don't get it. Building a larger version (which would require a complete redesign, decreasing returns on engine designs, payload limitations, real-world issues like that) that can sustain the stresses involved is a non-trivial issue. How high a rate of premature detonation are you willing to live with? Where's your data on warp 10 projectiles keeping M/AM safely separate, then combining them effiencently? Oh wait... you don't fucking have any, because you're talking out of your ass.

As for scaling it up, they'd have to experiment with scaling it up 2x, 5x, 10x, 100x, find something that works. I just mentioned 50x as an example.

The point is that number came from the same place as the rest of your ideas: your ass. Even an increase of 10x would require essentially starting from scratch, with a whole bucket of utterly untested technologies - did you miss things like the Saturn V project? Surely it'd be easy to scale up Titan 50x?

As someone pointed out, this beast has the firepower of a whole fuckload of photorps,

You missed the point. The point is THOSE NUMBERS ARE BULLSHIT, because it's RIDICULOUS that it's that much more powerful. How long would you have to divert the entire Federation PT manufacturing complex to this task to create even ONE? Even then, you want to scale it up, so you'll lose heaps of them on test launches etc. Didn't think about that though, did you?

it should overwhelm most shields

What's its yield, again? Oh wait, you don't know! Silly me.

(I'm a Trekkie, I've only seen the original trilogy and that was months ago, refresh my memory with regard to interdictor fields? Can they be overwhelmed with brute force? If so the missile can be programmed to go off if its sensors detect an interdictor field or ISD. I only know things like BDZ's and Galaxy Guns from this site, so excuse my ignorance from the SW side.)

Chief, the interdictors would probably pull it out of warp miles away from any ships, since interdictors create mass shadows over a wide area. Since it's horribly fragile and unstable, and has poor navigation, it'd get shot down pretty damn quick.

Don't worry too much about navigation, who worries about navigating a heat seeking missile? Who worries about navigating a missile programmed to move in the direction its sensors show an ISD?

You're a fucking moron. Seriously. Who cares about navigating at unheard-of speeds? INFINITE speeds if we listen to you - why could navigation be important? Oh fuck, I don't know... how about hitting something? Just maybe? How's it going to find a target FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GALAXY? Hmmm? How's its terminal guidance work? Is it impact or proximity fused? I'll give you a hint - aerospace engineers worry about navigating missiles. You know, the guys that build missiles? Those guys.

And about making many, without greater info on the Federation's industrial capacity I can't say.

Well shit boss, it's got 17,000 PTs in there, take a fucking guess. It's hard to comment when you just admit you've got no basis at all.

As for mass killing, the Klingons and Romulans and whatever allies the Federation has will have them too.

So they all worked together? Wow, international military design projects have such a great record of success!

The Imps will be tied down in relief efforts, rebuilding their planets and stuff (the people will rapidly lose faith if their government can't protect them. To be fair, the same plague will befall the Federation, but they're fighting for their survival, the Empire, just after a few extra planets, may be forced to re-evaluate it's cost-benefit ratio. Think Vietnam.)

So you figure these will penetrate SW planetary shields? How's that? And say they can build... gee, lets just pull something out of my ass... one a week. How many planets will Imperial superweapons destroy in that time? Whats the expected life of the war? Three days?

But I forgot. They built hundreds of them (which didn't take years to design, or starve their ships of fuel, or anything practical like that) and hid them in the mantle of planets all over the galaxy. They can't navigate, they might not survive the trip, and it only takes one ISD to destroy the Federation in a few weeks. How does this work, again?

Lets not forget, that the successful use of these weapons on civilian targets (a long shot, but for the sake of conversation) would result in the depopulation of the Federation in short order.

[Stark]

Shit, sorry Praxis. You said it better than me

[Gandalf]

Hum. Proof the missile will survive the trip (ST things break at high speed, see VOY)? Proof they can navigate it? Proof it can be scaled up? Proof it can be cloaked? Proof Fed can make enough antimatter to build many? Proof it can penetrate the obvious countermeasure, interdictor fields?

Its retarded to say 'OMGzor lol of cousres you can claokzor a scaled up, warp 10, chockers with antimatter dradnoughtzor k thx n00b!'. If you've got something to base that on, go for your life. The best part is the 'render Imperial planet uninhabitable' part. I know you were wanking pretty hard, but honestly. They wouldn't kill the (alien, 100% evil, about to kill them, zombie) Borg, so why would they try and kill hundreds of trillions of innocent humans?

What kind of proof do you need? As I said before, cloaks work on almost anything (mines, Fed and Cardassian ships that weren't built with cloasing devices in mind, take your pick.)

Here's a hint - repeating your baseless claim ISN'T proof. Any examples of cloaked warp 10 ships? No? No shit. Even cloaked transwarp ships? Cloaked slipstream ships? Hmmm?

Acc. to Lovok in TDiC, cloaks may not be as reliable at high speeds.

LOVOK
The fleet has recloaked and is about
to set course for the Founders'
homeworld at warp six.

GARAK
Warp six? That's a bit slow isn't
it? Something wrong with your
engines?

LOVOK
If we travel any faster, our warp
signatures may be detected by the
Jem'Hadar... even through the cloaking
devices.

[Joe Momma]

P.S. I'm not a physics major, can someone tell me exactly how much firepower we'd be looking at if a scaled-up version of the Dreadnaught missile were to contain, say, 1 MT of matter and 1 MT of antimatter?

e=mc^2. Plug 2 MT in for m, the speed of light for c and away you go.

While running those calcs, keep in mind that the reaction probably won't be one hundred percent efficient. IOW, the chances of every single atom of matter hitting a correspoding atom of anti-matter and converting to energy are ridiculously small (as has been discussed in previous trheads by much better physics-types than me).

In fact, to try and increase that liklihood, you'd want to space the matter and anti-matter out into a lot of smaller packets that you'd bring together simultaneously. If you just took a big lup of each and slapped them together, the explosion from the leading edges of the masses colliding would blow most of your reaction mass away from the collision, which would keep that mass from hitting its opposite and reacting.

This relates to the construction difficulties noted by others because it will increase the size and complexity of the missile considerably. Given that you're talking about 2 million tons of reactive material alone (never mind propulsion systems for this contraption, energy generators to power propulsion and shields of this huge mass as well as magnetic fields to keep all the disparate packets on anti-matter from contacting anything else, etc.), further complexity makes the whole thing an even bigger challenge.

And FWIW in size considerations, keep in mind that 1 MT of solid lead alone would be a cube approximately 200 meters on a side. Lighter materials will have even greater volume. Denser materials such as uranium or neutronium will be much rarer and while taking up less space will still have the same mass propulsion issues and will provide challenges to their storage and transportation over and above their mass.

-- Joe Momma

[mr friendly guy]

If we use the early TNG "infinite speed", you have to prove it would survive for a SECOND, since it passes through every point in the universe in an instant. I doubt there are many ships that can survive an impact with EVERY OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE at once...

Presumably he means the "warp 10" achieved in that horrible Voyager episode where Paris and Janeway "evolve" into lizard like creatures and produce offspring.

In which case the missile can occupy several points ( I am not willing to call it every point in the universe at this stage) some light years apart and survive since Paris's shuttle craft did. Federation computers can still scan and record even travelling at "warp 10" so seeing the ISD if its near by isn't the issue. However he needs to explain how they are going to target it since the Voyager crew never managed to get it to come out at a specific point.

At best such "warp 10" technology may be used as a reconnasance probe if the ISD can't activate interdictor fields fast enough.

[mr friendly guy]

In which case the missile can occupy several points ( I am not willing to call it every point in the universe at this stage) some light years apart and survive since Paris's shuttle craft did. Federation computers can still scan and record even travelling at "warp 10" so seeing the ISD if its near by isn't the issue. However he needs to explain how they are going to target it since the Voyager crew never managed to get it to come out at a specific point.

Damn, no edit button. That should read the Voyager crew never managed to get it to come out at a desired point.

[Darth Servo]

I don't remember too much about that episode, can't refute too many of your claims here. I'll have to do some rechecking and probably get the DVD Season 5 I think, but I'm pretty sure Warp 10 is infinite.

This is a known inconsistency.

In TNG it is stated originally that Warp 10 = infinite speed.

However, in the TNG Finale we see the Galaxy-X Enterprise from the future, that is capable of Warp 13.

And AGT was most likely a Q-induced halucination.

[Bounty]

I don't remember too much about that episode, can't refute too many of your claims here. I'll have to do some rechecking and probably get the DVD Season 5 I think, but I'm pretty sure Warp 10 is infinite.

This is a known inconsistency.

In TNG it is stated originally that Warp 10 = infinite speed.

However, in the TNG Finale we see the Galaxy-X Enterprise from the future, that is capable of Warp 13.

And AGT was most likely a Q-induced halucination.

Even if it wasn't, the warp scale may simply have been recalibrated again.

[Spacebeard]

I don't remember too much about that episode, can't refute too many of your claims here. I'll have to do some rechecking and probably get the DVD Season 5 I think, but I'm pretty sure Warp 10 is infinite.

This is a known inconsistency.

In TNG it is stated originally that Warp 10 = infinite speed.

However, in the TNG Finale we see the Galaxy-X Enterprise from the future, that is capable of Warp 13.

And AGT was most likely a Q-induced halucination.

Either thst or the scale of warp factors was renumbered in that future timeline, presumably to avoid always having to recite numbers like "warp 9.99867" as their ships got faster. Remember that TOS used a different scale, also, hence how the Enterprise reached warp 14 or higher in some episodes.

[Darth Servo]

It's a MISSILE. When was the last time you saw someone steering a cruise missile?

When was the last time you saw a MISSILE as big as a starship? When was the last time you saw a missile where people could walk around inside the thing?
When was the last time you saw a missile with internal controls that Torres was playing around with while trying to disarm the thing?

but I'm pretty sure Warp 10 is infinite.

Even if they make that claim, that HARDLE proves it true in light of the objective evidence we have.

Size matters if you want the thing's hull integrity to be strong, yeah. We're talking about a missile that's DESIGNED to blow up when it strikes an ISD, not a scaled-up warship.

Size matters because the thing still needs to hold itself together while its cruising towards the target.

The only thing we have to be concerned with is keeping the matter and antimatter separated until the missile strikes the ISD.

Where are you going to PUT all this extra matter and antimatter?

And this missile won't have to worry about gravity if it's made in space, unlike the 50 foot tall woman or the ant the size of a tank.

I see you didn't finish reading that page. You still need to worry about the forces from its own engines.



Cloaking devices have gone onto loads of things that they're not designed for. The mines in DS9, the Enterprise wasn't made to accomodate a cloak but the Pegasus' cloak worked fine on it,[/quote]The mines were NOT phase cloaked. And the mines didn't need to worry about going to another starsystem either. So all they really had was:

a) an explosive (and a small one at that hence the need to swarm detonate).
b) a cloaking device
c) minithrusters to achieve the swarm detonation
d) transporter/replicator system to create new mines.

We can do two of those with present day technology.

the Cardassian warships in the TDIC fleet (Cardassian ships don't use cloaks for the most part) so it's not a leap in logic to use it on a Cardassian dreadnought.

OK, conceeded.

The Romulans don't want to live under Imperial fascism any more than the Federation.

What makes you think the Imperials will declare war on EVERYONE simultaneously?

A state that signed away its cloaking technology won't mind letting the Tal Shiar command an Allied defense operation.

Trust one of the Federations long time enemies with their defense? I think not.

And the Cardassians are in a poor position to resist after the curbstomping they got in WYLB. Their major contribution would be the Dreadnaught missile technology.

If they are in such dire straights, where would the BUILD the thing?

But knowing the Federation, they'll test the thing on one of their own inhabited colonies first.

More likely on some barren rock in the cosmic boondocks. Not even Klingons are that dismissive of human(oid) life.[/quote]That must be what led to the disasterous situation when when testing the soliton wave. (see point #2) "Did they test on a miniature test rig? No, they tested it on a full-sized ship. Did they test it in a vacuum chamber? No, they tested it in open space. Did they point it at an uninhabited moon? Of course not. They launched it directly toward a populated colony!"

No, I mentioned putting the missile bases off planet, in defense stations and asteroid fields, and uninhabited rocks

Then they'll be blown to bits as the Imperial fleet blows up those defense stations. And Imperials have NO problems chasing targets into asteroid fields, unlike the wussies of the Federation.

as well as defended planets.

Those defended planets will be some of the first things to go as the Imperial blitzkreig steamrolls through the alpha quad.

I do remember the Enterprise using a Borg transwarp conduit in Descent (TNG), perhaps a ship with a copy of Voyager's log could use existing conduit to get to a place near the planet with the special dilithium or, more efficiently(?),

Assuming the borg HAVE a conduit leading to that part of space.

try to modify ordinary dilithium?

What do we do with unverifiable claims around here? <hears sound of flushing toilet>

Theoretically, couldn't they slow it down ever so slightly, to the point where it's faster than anything the Imperial forces can throw at them but not infinite so it can be targetted? Might still be dangerous for humanoid travel, but it can still be equipped with a warhead.

That STILL doesn't solve the problem of getting the thing to detonate where you want it to.

Or slap a transwarp drive on it. (The Federation's transwarp drive is dangerous, ships with it don't last but a modified Dreadnaught would only have to last long enough to hit an ISD.

And how long do you figure that will take? Keep in mind that ISDs are NOT stationary targets.

Also, some can be left warp 10 and fired into the Imperial galaxy, where they can wreak havoc beyond a terrorist's wildest wet dreams.

Asssuming they can actually hit anything. Keep in mind that any important planet has SHIELDING around it. Alderaan's planetary shield was strong enough to hold off the DS superlaser for a fraction of a second.

[Darth Servo]

And AGT was most likely a Q-induced halucination.

Even if it wasn't, the warp scale may simply have been recalibrated again.

Its totally incompatible with Nemesis. Data dies in Nemesis yet he is alive and well many years afterwards in AGT.

[Praxis]

I don't remember too much about that episode, can't refute too many of your claims here. I'll have to do some rechecking and probably get the DVD Season 5 I think, but I'm pretty sure Warp 10 is infinite.

This is a known inconsistency.

In TNG it is stated originally that Warp 10 = infinite speed.

However, in the TNG Finale we see the Galaxy-X Enterprise from the future, that is capable of Warp 13.

And AGT was most likely a Q-induced halucination.

I believe in one of the early Borg episodes the Borg ship was stated to be moving at some very high rated warp speed, rather than transwarp.

[Praxis]

And AGT was most likely a Q-induced halucination.

Even if it wasn't, the warp scale may simply have been recalibrated again.

Its totally incompatible with Nemesis. Data dies in Nemesis yet he is alive and well many years afterwards in AGT.

Plenty of possibilities.

Knowing about the future as Picard did after being there could have changed events.
It could have been a possible future.
Or it could still happen- perhaps Data's memories resurface in B4 and replaces his own and he becomes Data, gets Data's name and rank and position, etc.