Suggestions for Arguments on the main site

[Kane Starkiller]

Here are a few more arguments I hear often, these particular quotes come from Starfleetjedi page:

Romulan plasma torpedo from "Balance of terror"

The plasma torpedo, seen in "Balance of Power," disintegrated quite thoroughly the fourth UFP outpost it attacked; this outpost was "a mile deep on an asteroid. Almost solid iron." With the first shot, the Romulan ship took out the deflectors and damaged the station severely; the second shot then disintegrated the asteroid and outpost into "dust and debris" - by "forcing an implosion." To crush a two mile diameter asteroid mostly comprised of iron into dust using glowing hot plasma requires a great deal of work. Considering the presence of some debris, the yield could be guessed at being perhaps only a hundred gigatons or so - a truly impressive sum, particularly for a ship as small as the Romulans'. It is not surprising in the least that the ship appears to have the capability to fire only 5-10 (probably 9) shots before needing to refuel.

Enterprise firepower from "Taste of armageddon"

In "A Taste for Armageddon," Kirk states bluntly: "In two hours, the Enterprise will destroy Eminiar 7." In this particular context, it appears as though the Enterprise has quite enough firepower to level all civilization of Eminar 7, which has been fortifying and stockpiling weapons for the past 500 years, in a fairly short span of time. Similar reference to this capability occur in "Bread and Circuses" and "Operation: Annihilate!" Kirk agonizes over obliterating a human colony with a million people in order to destroy the neural parasites that have infested it in the latter, while in the former, an ex-captain, worried, notes that the Enterprise would be able to wipe out the 20th century version of a planetary Roman Empire.

Incidentally, we could use this to check our yield estimates. We may estimate that destroying Eminar 7 involves levelling reinforced concrete buildings over perhaps a total of 1-25% of the planet's surface; with efficient thermal weaponry, this may be somewhere around ~20kt per square kilometer. With a surface area for an Earthlike planet of about a half billion, this gives us - very generally - 100 gigatons to perhaps 2.5 teratons or so that the U.S.S. Enterprise is expected to deliver in short order. This is generally agreeable with our rough estimates of phaser and photon torpedo yields from various episodes.

Firepower from "Whom Gods destroy"

"The Paradise Syndrome" shows Spock trying to split into pieces an asteroid stated to be nearly the size of Earth's moon using phasers after failing to deflect it sufficiently using the ship's deflector screens. Even considering that he was attempting to take advantage of a "weak spot" in the asteroid, as well as the asteroid being somewhat less than actually moon-sized, this would require zettajoules of imparted energy if not yottajoules to pull off - i.e., the equivalent of gigatons to teratons of TNT. The actual effect achieved is somewhat less impressive; the first normal phaser blast used on the asteroid produces a splash of glow about a third the diameter of the asteroid; a full broadside with the phasers only causes a small square of the asteroid to glow molten red.

++http://www.starfleetjedi.net/Square_Blast.jpg

If the asteroid's longer dimension is a bit over 1700 km, then the area melted is about 70 km across and roughly square. The heat of fusion for lava is generally similar to the energy required to heat the rock ~300 kelvins; granite generally melts at about 925 kelvins; if we approximate it as being granite chemically and having a bulk density of 2 tons per cubic meter, melting a 70 km cube out of the asteroid gives only ~130-160 exajoules for a full power broadside by the Enterprise. With four phasers being fired on full power here, that's a maximum strength blast of 30-40 EJ per phaser - 7-10 gigatons. Considering that it may not have truly been an entire 70 km cube melted, but likely a smaller fraction, we should call it perhaps 1-10 gigatons for a ship's phaser on full blast.

[Lord Poe]

Well, given that the actual episode has the ventral saucer main phasers firing instead of the larger dorsal ones, means that this is not likely the highest firepower that the E-D can manage. There are something like 742 emitters on the ventral large array, and 965 on the dorsal large array for a difference of 23%. So one might expect the larger of the two arrays to have about 36 MT (151,200 TJ) of firepower.

Also, as has been noted, the actual time the phasers take to do the job in melting most of the comet nucleous is far less than a minute, thus 29.33 MT is a lower limit. If the phasers were fired intermittently as some people are claiming for the scene, not as a single continuous blast, then the firepower for the phasers will be much higher as a result.
Okay, I had a chance to pick up the DVD version of "Masks" at one of my local DVD/Video rental stores, and popped it in the player for a look at what happened with the comet melting/vaporization.

1.) First off the beam is a continuous wide-beam blast, no intermittent firing seen in the brief FX shot scenes.


2.) Timing: Picard orders the phasers fired at 9 minutes, 2 seconds, then Worf reports the phasers are terminating the operation at 9 minutes, 13 seconds. For an approximate duration of 11 seconds.


This means the phaser power delivered will be approximately 6 times higher than my conservative 60 second duration estimate, or 18.1 MT a second. Since this represents 10% power, a full-power blast for the second largest phaser array on the E-D would be in the range of 181 MT a second. The largest of the E-D's phasers, the upper main saucer array, will be at least around 23% higher than this as previous noted, or 222 MT a second.

My oh my... If the Feds had this much firepower per ship, why did they ever sweat one Borg cube?

[Darth Wong]

Dicenzo is one of those old-school Trekkies who made up his own version of science in his head and uses it faithfully. He tends to produce calculations of what he thinks Trek firepower should be, rather than looking at what it has actually demonstrated.

The "Masks" thing is a good example of Trekkie bullshit; if the beam was anywhere near as powerful as they say, it would have created shockwaves at the point of impact which shattered huge chunks of ice and sent them flying away. But of course, they wouldn't know that because it simply never occurred to them; their comprehension of science is that bad.

[Darth Wong]

Has anyone mentioned the argument that Federation ships can engage at ranges of hundreds of thousands of kilometers yet?

I don't remember so. However in rare occasions don't they engage at that range?

According to Data, it happened with Captain Maxwell against a Cardassian Galor-class ship in "The Wounded", firing photon torpedoes. Mind you, effective range with guided missiles is much longer than it is for direct-fire weapons; this is even true today. I would have no problem with the argument that Federation ships can routinely hit targets with torpedoes from hundreds of thousands of kilometres away, but at such long range, the enemy would have plenty of time to try and shoot down the inbound torpedo unless his weapons and targeting abilities are quite inferior (as we can assume for the Cardassian vessel in "The Wounded" since it got its ass kicked despite having the Phoneix's prefix codes).

[Surlethe]

Has anyone mentioned the argument that Federation ships can engage at ranges of hundreds of thousands of kilometers yet?

The simple counterargument to the implied argument, by the way, is that Imperial ships can engage accurately at ranges of hundreds of millions of kilometers.

[Coyote]

Also, before I forget:

I've been watching DS9 on DVD and I'm halfway through season 4 where Major Kira is on the Cardassian Freighter with the disgraced Gul Dukat (Dukat being disgraced because he brought back his half-Bajoran daughter to the Cardie homeworld).

Kira, Dukat, and Dukat's daughter are preparing for the possibility of a Klingon boarding party attacking the freighter and them having to fight in the corridors of the freighter. Kira is teaching the girl how to defend herself and comparing the Cardassian assault disruptor rifle and the Federation phaser rifle. She says at one point that the Cardassian rifle has a "4.75 megajoule" power cell and four intensity settings, the Federation rifle is "not as powerful" but has 16 settings.

AFAIK that's the only time an actual setting number is assigned to ST hand weapons, unless I've missed something? I've been through the starship weapons stuff but I don't remember an infantry weapons comparison...

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Maxwell destroyed a Cardassian freighter which was suspected of carrying weapons, as well as a warship, I forget which order it was. Picard reluctantly gave the Cardassians the Phoenix's prefix codes to drop it's shields while the Enterprise observed on long-range sensors (I believe the range of which surprised the Cardies) while Data commentated on what happened. The Cardassians dropped the ship's shields and scored a direct hit, Maxwell responded by moving out of the weapons range of the Cardassians while arming both Phasers and Photons before destroying the Cardassians with a single volley. (Apparently this is the first time we see the Cardassians as well as the Nebula class)

[Ryushikaze]

One I've run into a couple times- and one that usually signals the rapid end of the conversation, is that the ISD hulls can't be as strong as they claim, because if they were AT-STs would be a lot stronger.

There's also the inverse, where they've claimed that ISD armor has to be impossibly thick because it must be as strong as AT-ST armor, but that one only came up once, and the former's a much better example of bad thinking rather than deliberately not thinking anyways.

[Vympel]

Who says he was "leaning to the Dark Side"? That's just made up non-canon shit. As far as Yoda was concerned, all he needed to do to be a Jedi was confront Vader.

I'll never understand how some thing that smashing two guards into a wall with sufficient strength to knock them unconcious is somehow fine (RotS) but if you make them choke and gasp, all of a sudden it's DARK SIDED.

Fucking please ....

(not speaking to anyone in particular, of course)

[Ted C]

Has anyone mentioned the argument that Federation ships can engage at ranges of hundreds of thousands of kilometers yet?

I don't remember so. However in rare occasions don't they engage at that range?

According to Data, it happened with Captain Maxwell against a Cardassian Galor-class ship in "The Wounded", firing photon torpedoes.

And that's a dubious example, at best. The Cardassian ship was closing with the Phoenix at high warp speed, meaning they had relative velocities in excess of lightspeed. The claimed 300,000 km range could easily have disappeared in less than a second. It doesn't help that Data's commentary describing the battle between the two ship's isn't consistent with the readouts on the screen (for instance, Data says that the Phoenix moves outside the Cardassian ship's range and returns fire, but the screen shows that the Cardassian ship's weapons hae greater range than the Phoenix's).

[Ted C]

Oh, almost forgot (and hopefully they're not already covered)... the various myths about hand phasers.

- the Federation doesn't need anti-tank weapons, since phasers are easily powerful enough to do the job (making heavily armored vehicles useless, incidentally)

- the broad-beam capability of phasers will allow Federation troops to stun or kill hundreds of Stormtroopers with every shot

- the broad-beam capability of phasers will easily overcome the ability of Jedi to deflect shots with their lightsabres

- phasers have auto-aiming features to offset their lack of sights

[Darth Wong]

The auto-aiming thing is particularly annoying since certain Trekkies have taken to stating it as an established fact even though they have never been able to produce evidence for anything more than a SteadiCam-style stabilizer, never mind a tactical advantage of Fed phasers over, say, Cardassian phasers which lack these kinds of systems. Some of them even admit this, but still insist on calling it "auto-aim", which is totally misleading in that case (much like calling a certain bill "The PATRIOT Act").

In fact, the only advantage I can see for a SteadiCam-style system in a hand phaser is due to the Federation's propensity for "jack of all trades, master of none" tools. It would be useful when using a continuous-beam phaser as a welder, because you would get a smoother, more even cutting or welding performance.

[Vympel]

- the Federation doesn't need anti-tank weapons, since phasers are easily powerful enough to do the job (making heavily armored vehicles useless, incidentally)

Debunked by the mere existence of the Breen CRM-114 bazooka sized weapon in DS9's "Business As Usual":

QUARK
The Breen CRM-one-fourteen works
equally well against moving
vessels or surface emplacements.
It's guaranteed to cut through
reactive armor in the six-to-
fifteen centimeter range, and
shields up to four-point-six
gigajoules.

This, incidentally, handily disproves the rabid bullshit about hand phasers in the gigajoule range and similar nonsense- and is quite consistent with the 800MW-1GW or so blasts that knocked out Runabout shields in one shot in DS9's "Battle Lines" (for comedy value, I'll just say that one apologetic tactic used by that retard, BigHairyMountainMan, to explain away this incident was that to vehemently insist that the 800MW-1GW wasn't the weapon at all, but was actually the targeting system. No joke.)

- the broad-beam capability of phasers will allow Federation troops to stun or kill hundreds of Stormtroopers with every shot

Refer to numerous short range boarding incidents- It's obviously of low combat utility, and of course the usual wide-beam power consumption/ energy considerations.

- the broad-beam capability of phasers will easily overcome the ability of Jedi to deflect shots with their lightsabres

This is the standard argument of idiots who don't even understand Jedi powers, of course. Leaving aside the usual intensity rebuttal, a Jedi sees things before they happen. They'll not be so short-sighted that they'll attempt to block what can't be blocked. Anakin didn't attempt to block Geonosian sonic blasters, he dodged them. That's assuming some Starfleet crewman did get within range to use it.

[OmegaGuy]

Also Jedi can absorb energy attacking their bodies.

[Jim Raynor]

Also Jedi can absorb energy attacking their bodies.

Uh, how is this a common Trektard argument? The Jedi CAN absorb energy attacks, and that helps SW.

[Ted C]

Also Jedi can absorb energy attacking their bodies.

Uh, how is this a common Trektard argument? The Jedi CAN absorb energy attacks, and that helps SW.

He was responding to my list of Trekkie phaser myths, not suggesting a new Trekkie argument.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I don't actually know if anyone has actually even suggested this one, but it couldn't hurt to add a preemptive rebuttal to the idea that a phaser can disrupt a lightsaber into shutting down or feeding back into the hilt and blowing up in a Jedi's hands.

[Ghost Rider]

I don't actually know if anyone has actually even suggested this one, but it couldn't hurt to add a preemptive rebuttal to the idea that a phaser can disrupt a lightsaber into shutting down or feeding back into the hilt and blowing up in a Jedi's hands.

Really why? Literally if the blasters cannot, the phaser will not if it's unable to reach the same level of joules of the blaster.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I don't actually know if anyone has actually even suggested this one, but it couldn't hurt to add a preemptive rebuttal to the idea that a phaser can disrupt a lightsaber into shutting down or feeding back into the hilt and blowing up in a Jedi's hands.

Really why? Literally if the blasters cannot, the phaser will not if it's unable to reach the same level of joules of the blaster.

I came up with the idea when I was much younger, based on the premise that phasers do some atomic deconstruction voodoo. Again, I couldn't say if there are actually Trekkies who hold to this or not, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Ghost Rider]

I don't actually know if anyone has actually even suggested this one, but it couldn't hurt to add a preemptive rebuttal to the idea that a phaser can disrupt a lightsaber into shutting down or feeding back into the hilt and blowing up in a Jedi's hands.

Really why? Literally if the blasters cannot, the phaser will not if it's unable to reach the same level of joules of the blaster.

I came up with the idea when I was much younger, based on the premise that phasers do some atomic deconstruction voodoo. Again, I couldn't say if there are actually Trekkies who hold to this or not, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Not really needed since you can see what a phaser, and blaster rates at in joule pouring and if the very much higher one isn't doing it...the lower won't even begin to make a concievable dent.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Really why? Literally if the blasters cannot, the phaser will not if it's unable to reach the same level of joules of the blaster.

I came up with the idea when I was much younger, based on the premise that phasers do some atomic deconstruction voodoo. Again, I couldn't say if there are actually Trekkies who hold to this or not, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Not really needed since you can see what a phaser, and blaster rates at in joule pouring and if the very much higher one isn't doing it...the lower won't even begin to make a concievable dent.

And assuming that the Trekkie in question simply thinks that a phaser is a old fashioned beam o' heat, that would definetly be an adequate response - but I was thinking more of those who hold to alternate models of phaser behaviour, like the neutrino decay theory on the main site.

[Ghost Rider]

Not really needed since you can see what a phaser, and blaster rates at in joule pouring and if the very much higher one isn't doing it...the lower won't even begin to make a concievable dent.

And assuming that the Trekkie in question simply thinks that a phaser is a old fashioned beam o' heat, that would definetly be an adequate response - but I was thinking more of those who hold to alternate models of phaser behaviour, like the neutrino decay theory on the main site.

And that matters in that it still has to literally pump more energy then the lightsaber can handle.

In the end, that's where it falls on it's face and pointless to make a specific point about.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Awesome, thanks for the clarification.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

And assuming that the Trekkie in question simply thinks that a phaser is a old fashioned beam o' heat, that would definetly be an adequate response - but I was thinking more of those who hold to alternate models of phaser behaviour, like the neutrino decay theory on the main site.

Again, it's not really needed. A phaser fired at, say, a rock or rock-like substance, tends to produce a glowing spot. Doesn't matter what mechanism you use to transfer that energy to the spot, be it by NDF, DET, or by summoning a hyperdimensional tomcat to spray anti-baryon radiation transdimensional feline urological tract excretory product on the spot, the end result is the same. A blaster fired at a rock-like substance produces a fairly impressive explosion, implying a much higher degree of energy transfer.

The mechanism by which the energy is transferred is meaningless. What matters is the amount of energy transferred, and how quickly you transfer it.

[The Dark]

The old one that got me onto the site - the laser myth. I pulled this one from the Database ages ago:

PICARD: Locate the exact source of the tractor beam -- lock on phasers.

WORF: Phasers locked on target.

PICARD: Fire.

(The Enterprise fires on the cube, with no effect).

WORF: They still have us.

DATA: Shields are down.

WORF: A type of laser beam is slicing into the Saucer Section.

RIKER: They're carving us up like a roast.

PICARD: With whatever force you need, terminate that beam ... fire!

Obviously, the navigational deflector wasn't enough to deflect that laser .