Doomsday Machine (ST) vs. Star Destroyer (SW)

[Darth Wong]

No. What I'm saying is that they obviously have sufficient antimatter to meet their needs for ship-power, and then extra, for weapons, which they seem to have in sufficient quantities to fight and win wars. So why bother switching to a technology which is probably somewhat cheaper, but produces a less flexible weapon, and would require the construction of an entirely new industry in parallel to their fuel industry?

Overnight? No reason. Long-term? It makes perfect sense. The idea that something must be the most efficient way of doing things just because it's working right now is a massive non sequitur and you know it.

As for fusion, throughout, here, I've been presuming fission-fusion-fission weapons. Pure fusion weapons would probably be exceedingly cheap to manufacture, but to my knowledge, these don't appear to be used at all in the setting.

On the contrary, they seem to have achieved reliable and effective laser-initiation fusion. Mind you, that is technically based on the non-canon TMs, but unless we're being anal about continuity (like certain people who shall remain unnamed), we have to concede that the writing staff almost certainly believes they have the technological capability to achieve pure fusion without needing a fission trigger.

[brianeyci]

NecronLord, this all started when you replied by mentioning a whole bunch of other reasons why they would use photon torpedoes instead of nuclear weapons, and I attacked your weakest point, the expense. Now it was wanking to say photon torpedoes should be more powerful just because they're more expensive, but now I find out for some reason you disagree that they're more expensive.

You would not need an entirely new industry. They already use fusion reactors. As far as I know the BOT BOP not having warp drive has been discredited so many times it's not even funny. You don't seem to have a leg to stand on, especially when you made this comment,

How the fuck do you know it is? We've no clue how it's done industrially.

Which seems to be a load of shit. Batman and maybe even DW will tear into you for that and I can't believe you didn't accept that antimatter weapons were more expensive when I first mentioned it. Why, because I said it? It doesn't seem to be a controversal topic at all, almost basic.

[NecronLord]

Overnight? No reason. Long-term? It makes perfect sense. The idea that something must be the most efficient way of doing things just because it's working right now is a massive non sequitur and you know it.

This is indeed true, but, the UFP aren't exactly the best planners in the universe, and aren't that interested in their military potential. It only has to make sense to them. I hardly claimed continuing to use antimatter for everything was safe, sane, or even intelligent. It's quite a long way from any (as I said above, I'm still wondering why they don't adapt transporters to function as a power system). These things even happen in real life, witness the lack of changes to more enviromentally friendly technologies because of long term warnings.

A better question would be why no one else carries nuclear weapons, ever. I would say they're definately concieved as being 'better' than nuclear weapons, and probably more destructive ("We have photon torpedos! Now we are strong!"). There's always the possibility that romulan 'plasma torpedos' mentioned in DS9 are some form of fusion device, though this would require them to be different from the thing in Balance of Terror. That would make some sense, though, as they don't use antimatter for power either. Possibly moving 'beyond' antimatter (to an even more dangerous power system) makes photon torpedos uneconmical.

On the contrary, they seem to have achieved reliable and effective laser-initiation fusion. Mind you, that is technically based on the non-canon TMs, but unless we're being anal about continuity (like certain people who shall remain unnamed), we have to concede that the writing staff almost certainly believes they have the technological capability to achieve pure fusion without needing a fission trigger.

I meant as weapons. I seem to recall Impulse engine fusion reactors being mentioned on screen, and DS9 definately has them. But I can't recall any actual weapons, save the supposition on plasma torpedos above.

Of course, if such reliable fusion weapons actually are possible, and can out-compete nuclear weapons, then one probably has to chalk up their failure to use them (especially on Voyager!) to incompetance. As usual.

[NecronLord]

NecronLord, this all started when you replied by mentioning a whole bunch of other reasons why they would use photon torpedoes instead of nuclear weapons, and I attacked your weakest point, the expense. Now it was wanking to say photon torpedoes should be more powerful just because they're more expensive, but now I find out for some reason you disagree that they're more expensive.

Not really. Only that they'd be prohibatively expensive.

You would not need an entirely new industry. They already use fusion reactors. As far as I know the BOT BOP not having warp drive has been discredited so many times it's not even funny.

It clearly has FTL. The line is 'its power is simple impulse' which I presume to mean a fusion power plant...

You don't seem to have a leg to stand on, especially when you made this comment,

How the fuck do you know it is? We've no clue how it's done industrially.

Which seems to be a load of shit. Batman and maybe even DW will tear into you for that and I can't believe you didn't accept that antimatter weapons were more expensive when I first mentioned it. Why, because I said it? It doesn't seem to be a controversal topic at all, almost basic.

The point is, you're coming out with claims like 'they could only produce a few a year, because Nyarth's site says antimatter generation can only become so advanced...' when obviously they do produce quite a number of torpedos per year, and it isn't expensive enough doing so to make them switch to something else. In their eyes, the benefits of photon torpedos must outweigh the costs. Even if said reasoning is something utterly retarded, the expense can't be prohibitory, because they actually do manage to make large numbers of torpedos - even after using the AM to power their fleet.

[NecronLord]

Of course, this is all taking as read that an atomic alternative to photon/quantum torpedos exists which is capable of enduring the same accelerations and so forth and can fit into the same size - and of course, some part of a torpedo must also be missile, 'red blob generator' and 'warp-sustainer' as well as antimatter warhead. I wouldn't be certain of that, though it shouldn't be that hard to replace it with a few kilos of deuterium, it would require a much more efficient mechanism.

Of course, replacing the torpedos with bigger atomic torpedos is always possible, but I suspect Starfleet would balk at changing all their ships, and designing a whole new lineage of probes.

[Darth Wong]

Actually, if the Feds can make a pure-fusion device, it would undoubtedly endure accelerations better than a M/AM device simply because you don't have to worry about maintaining non-contact confinement of the super-volatile AM. Even if the initiation device is quite large, you'd still get at least comparable performance, without the dangers and infrastructural requirements of the AM-based weaponry. This would be especially important for facilities such as starbases and outposts.

[brianeyci]

NecronLord, this all started when you replied by mentioning a whole bunch of other reasons why they would use photon torpedoes instead of nuclear weapons, and I attacked your weakest point, the expense. Now it was wanking to say photon torpedoes should be more powerful just because they're more expensive, but now I find out for some reason you disagree that they're more expensive.

Not really. Only that they'd be prohibatively expensive.

Who said they were prohibitatively expensive? Fighting the argument you want instead of the argument that's there some? And are you making an argument, which I will then ask for you for proof that they're cheap, or are you rebutting my argument, which never said they were prohibitively expensive, only that they were more difficult to manufacture than nuclear weapons (which I thought was a given here on SD.net)? Make up your mind whether you want to strawman or make an argument from ignorance so I can call you out on it.

It clearly has FTL. The line is 'its power is simple impulse' which I presume to mean a fusion power plant...

How do you get "they are not using antimatter" from that to prove your claim that a BOP was inferior to the ENT in a significant way because it had no antimatter?

The point is, you're coming out with claims like 'they could only produce a few a year, because Nyarth's site says antimatter generation can only become so advanced...' when obviously they do produce quite a number of torpedos per year, and it isn't expensive enough doing so to make them switch to something else. In their eyes, the benefits of photon torpedos must outweigh the costs. Even if said reasoning is something utterly retarded, the expense can't be prohibitory, because they actually do manage to make large numbers of torpedos - even after using the AM to power their fleet.

Who said the expense was prohibitory? And I did not say a few a year, I said "incredibly low amounts like a handful of torpedoes a day." Fighting the argument you want instead of what's there? Do you want me to show the math, multiply 2 nanograms per hour out by millions for you and see how many kilograms of antimatter per hour millions of particle accelerators could make? Maybe we should go with your idea that they get antimatter from a mirror universe .

[Darth Wong]

You know, watching this debate, it struck me that the cost of antimatter production might explain why photorps never have the kind of enormous yield that people expect them to have: they can only afford to put minute quantities of antimatter into their torps. Perhaps they really can make these big 64-megaton torpedoes, but it would take a really long time to charge one up with that much antimatter because the feed system can't load it that fast (really, why do people assume it's like pumping water through a hose) and antimatter is a valuable resource, so they only use that kind of yield for extraordinary operations.

[NecronLord]

Actually, if the Feds can make a pure-fusion device, it would undoubtedly endure accelerations better than a M/AM device simply because you don't have to worry about maintaining non-contact confinement of the super-volatile AM. Even if the initiation device is quite large, you'd still get at least comparable performance, without the dangers and infrastructural requirements of the AM-based weaponry. This would be especially important for facilities such as starbases and outposts.

Fair point. I suspect they might not be able to make one then. Or perhaps just not make them very well.

EDIT: OR, as above, they could just be being stupid. Again.

[NecronLord]

Who said they were prohibitatively expensive?

It has to be for that to be a reason why it is idiotic for them to use sub-hundred-megaton weapons.

Fighting the argument you want instead of the argument that's there some? And are you making an argument, which I will then ask for you for proof that they're cheap, or are you rebutting my argument, which never said they were prohibitively expensive, only that they were more difficult to manufacture than nuclear weapons (which I thought was a given here on SD.net)? Make up your mind whether you want to strawman or make an argument from ignorance so I can call you out on it.

This has been dealt with over and over again. The answer is, it doesn't have to be cheap it just has to be cheap enough to be affordable in enough numbers to use.

How do you get "they are not using antimatter" from that to prove your claim that a BOP was inferior to the ENT in a significant way because it had no antimatter?

'It's power is simple impulse' We hear elsewhere that impulse engines are fusion based, and the Romulan ship had fuel problems. This isn't exactly rocket science. [EDIT: ARRRGH. Yes, yes it is. How'd I miss that...]

Who said the expense was prohibitory?

It must be prohibitative for your idea that it's ludicrous to have them be sub-nuclear yeild to stand up on grounds of the cost of antimatter. And we're still ignoring the fact that the UFP loves shiny-whizz-bangs and hates straightforward answers, even in Kirk's time.

And I did not say a few a year, I said "incredibly low amounts like a handful of torpedoes a day." Fighting the argument you want instead of what's there?

Oh boo hoo. One mistake.

Do you want me to show the math, multiply 2 nanograms per hour out by millions for you and see how many kilograms of antimatter per hour millions of particle accelerators could make?

Two torpedos per day becomes just over seven hundred per year. One battle in the Dominion War and they'd use up a whole year's supply.

Maybe we should go with your idea that they get antimatter from a mirror universe .

It wasn't a serious suggestion, and you know it. Not that it doesn't have a certain degree of merit, mind you.

[NecronLord]

You know, watching this debate, it struck me that the cost of antimatter production might explain why photorps never have the kind of enormous yield that people expect them to have: they can only afford to put minute quantities of antimatter into their torps. Perhaps they really can make these big 64-megaton torpedoes, but it would take a really long time to charge one up with that much antimatter because the feed system can't load it that fast (really, why do people assume it's like pumping water through a hose) and antimatter is a valuable resource, so they only use that kind of yield for extraordinary operations.

I'd always just assumed they did contain about a Kg, but were only about 10% efficient at best.

[brianeyci]

Who said they were prohibitatively expensive?

It has to be for that to be a reason why it is idiotic for them to use sub-hundred-megaton weapons.

I already conceded the point that the conclusion reached by the premise was wrong. We are talking about the premise itself, that antimatter weapons are more expensive than nuclear weapons.

Antimatter weapons require active containment, antimatter is difficult to produce.

How the fuck do you know it is? We've no clue how it's done industrially.

Are you going to keep running around in circles pretending you didn't say that?

Fighting the argument you want instead of the argument that's there some? And are you making an argument, which I will then ask for you for proof that they're cheap, or are you rebutting my argument, which never said they were prohibitively expensive, only that they were more difficult to manufacture than nuclear weapons (which I thought was a given here on SD.net)? Make up your mind whether you want to strawman or make an argument from ignorance so I can call you out on it.

This has been dealt with over and over again. The answer is, it doesn't have to be cheap it just has to be cheap enough to be affordable in enough numbers to use.

And my answer is... fucking red herring! What does that have to do with the fact that nuclear weapons are easier to manufacture?

How do you get "they are not using antimatter" from that to prove your claim that a BOP was inferior to the ENT in a significant way because it had no antimatter?

'It's power is simple impulse' We hear elsewhere that impulse engines are fusion based, and the Romulan ship had fuel problems. This isn't exactly rocket science.

That doesn't mean it was the antimatter that helped the Enterprise win, only that his ship was a short ranged craft that was slower. Come on.

Who said the expense was prohibitory?

It must be prohibitative for your idea that it's ludicrous to have them be sub-nuclear yeild to stand up on grounds of the cost of antimatter. And we're still ignoring the fact that the UFP loves shiny-whizz-bangs and hates straightforward answers, even in Kirk's time.

I already conceded the conclusion, I assume we are arguing about the premise, and your stupid idea that I couldn't make any conclusions about antimatter weapons because I had no idea how they exactly made antimatter.

And I did not say a few a year, I said "incredibly low amounts like a handful of torpedoes a day." Fighting the argument you want instead of what's there?

Oh boo hoo. One mistake.

Fair enough given the mistakes I made earlier about the neutronium, but are you saying you didn't deliberately exagerrate what I said to make it seem stupid? It looks that way to me.

Two torpedos per day becomes just over seven hundred per year. One battle in the Dominion War and they'd use up a whole year's supply.

Still my idea of antimatter manufacture is superior to yours, which is no idea at all. And one thousand torpedoes was considered enough to take out a whole fleet, and the Federation had time to build it up. How long has the Federation been in existence? Centuries? And torpedoes seem to be more cannonball than explosive, and they can vary the yield. Give it up man.

It wasn't a serious suggestion, and you know it. Not that it doesn't have a certain degree of merit, mind you.

You mean it's bullshit. Thanks, come again.

[NecronLord]

See, now you're just banging on about something out of context. They don't have to be dirt cheap, and almost certainly are not. They just have to be cheap enough to make their cost not be a factor prohibiting their use instead of nuclear weapons. I will address one 'point' directly.

That doesn't mean it was the antimatter that helped the Enterprise win, only that his ship was a short ranged craft that was slower. Come on.

Watch it. The Romulans knock down the Ent's Shields, and disable it. Their captain does not administer a coup de grace because they have the fuel to either get home, or open fire again. It is subsequently destroyed by Kirk.

[brianeyci]

All I see is you trying to weasel out of something you said earlier.

Oh I don't know. Cost, fallout concerns, speed (Especially with fucking beam weapons, moron), reliability, political concerns (nukes are bad, mmkay, but MOABs are good), danger to manufacturers, ease of access for modification, tolerance of high accellerations? Gods, there's oodles of reasons. I've barely scratched the surface.

Why would you mention cost as a benefit alongside all the other points if your point wasn't that antimatter weapons were cheaper? This looks like one gigantic backpedal.

As for watching it, the last time I saw it I was 14. I just skimmed the last few pages of the transcript and you're right, the BOP might have won had it more fuel. And regardless your point about high energy density is not unique to Trek, it's a good idea to have high energy density for any starship. So you're right about that, but you do note that had the Romulan commander a nuclear missile he would've won.

[Batman]

My apologies for replying to a post from the last page but I do not think this has been dealt with yet. If it has fee free to call me a moron.

Err. The reasons this argument doesn't apply to mecha, save where background has been built to make the manufacture of mechas easy, is because a tracked vehicle is by defintion less complex than a mecha. A nuclear warhead is not by definition less complex than an antimatter one.

Yes it is. For starters it needs an active gravitics/magnetism based containment system that the nuclear warhead does NOT. THEN it needs a way to make as much as possible of the reactant to REACT as instantly as possible. Mind you so does the nuke, but I very much doubt the M/AM one is SIMPLER than the one for the nuke.

I haven't a clue. Frankly, they should be able to replicate it. Indeed, it should be outdated given that they have machines simultaneously capable of converting four hundred tons to energy (ST4).

Um-since when do transporters CANONICALLY convert stuff to energy?

The fact that AM is retained in the transporter era is actually a strong indication that it must be cheap as dirt (or of course, that the writers haven't thought it through).

Because of-what, exactly?

Again, dipshit, you're presuming that every weapon has to have maximum power. In your beloved Enterprise series, the armourer goes out of his way to say that antimatter weapons are superior because they're variable yeild and can 'knock the comm array off a shuttle' - wheas nuclear weapons are pretty much fixed yeild - there you go. There's your in-character reasoning, if you take Enterprise as valid.

Except modern-day nukes come in dial-a-yield variants, too... WITHOUT having to vary the amount of reactant on-the-fly.

"Batman"]Which is wont to result in a lot of piecemeal anihilations all over the place, NOT one big bang. Which is generally what you want from explosives barring cluster munitions.

The initial explosion would be rather more hefty.

Than WHAT, pray tell?

And what do you know... The photons are amazingly inconsistant weapons in their firepower. Just what you'd expect of an antimatter weapon.

And they considerably lack the secondary, tertiary, etc explosions all over the place a M/AM weapon of your design would produce.

Against a shielded target there will be no yield worth mentioning

How the fuck do you know that? It has on occasion, taken a mere few hundred gigajoules to drop shields. A kilogram of antimatter reacting with its casing will do that easily.

Except that kilogram of antimatter will NOT react with the casing in anything approaching one go, and only a minuscule fraction of that will actually hit the shields.

Of course, photon torpedos do not generally drop the shields of a large ship in one go. They do in fact, have 'no yield worth mentioning' on umpteen occasions.

Curious, didn't you just argue they WOULD have?

besides the KE/momentum of the torpedo for your dense matter shell version, on account of the initial detonation scattering the REST of the reactant all over the place.

Don't presume I don't know that. Explain to me why it matters that it's grossly inefficient. You only need a weapon of four hundred gigawatts (and given that the attack lasted less than a second, less joules) to drop the shields of a GCS. If 1/1,000,000 of a kilogram - a single milligram - reacted, you'd still end up with a 179 GJ blast.
There's absolutely no need for high firepower, given what the shows actually have to say about their shields.

Do the terms 'plasma vulnerability' and 'frequency vulnerability' mean anything to you? We have SEEN Starfleet ships being hit by multiple photon torpedoes and they did NOT immediately go kablooey (as you yourself admitted earlier on).

At least plutonium or tritium don't need active containment to keep them from going boom and modern thermonukes could achieve PT yields from something the size of a photorp in a freefall bomb in the 80s at the very latest.

And? These aren't freefall bombs, they're powered missiles capable of operating in space - even at transluminal speeds, no less.

When launched at transluminal speeds. When launched STL barring a few TOS outliers their speed is nothing to brag about.
And are you telling me that Treknology has advanced far enough to safely produce and handle antimatter but NOT far enough to make a maybe-MT range missile of photorp size? You gotta be kidding me.

[Sikon]

The yield to size ratio of present-day nuclear weapons might be much exceeded. For example, an implosion-type bomb of today uses a lot of relatively bulky chemical explosives giving merely a few thousand joules per gram.

An upper limit on nuclear weapon yield under normal conditions can be estimated from the maximum mass of uranium/plutonium or lithium deuteride that would fit within a warhead, then calculating the maximum energy release aside from inefficiencies.

Examples with a 2:1 length to diameter ratio, depending upon practical size:

One-meter diameter warhead:
Fission upper limit = 530 megatons
Fusion upper limit = 92 megatons

Two-meter diameter warhead:
Fission upper limit = 4200 megatons
Fusion upper limit = 740 megatons

Four-meter diameter warhead:
Fission upper limit = 34000 megatons
Fusion upper limit = 5900 megatons

Fission provides higher figures than fusion here because the preceding is based on volume. Though uranium has lower possible energy release per unit mass than lithium deuteride, it has 21 times the density under standard conditions. Pure fission versus pure fusion is illustrated for simplicity, though a combination is possible, like all high-yield nukes of today.

Obviously actual yields could be much less. Not 100% of a warhead's volume would be the nuclear material, and much of the uranium/plutonium or lithium deuteride might not actually undergo fission or fusion.

Still, nukes built with advanced technology might compare not too unfavorably to photon torpedoes with a maximum yield of 64 megatons, which are not particularly effective against some opponents such as Borg Cubes.

A question is what limits practical torpedo size. How big could a torpedo be without being too likely to be shot down? Are torpedo warheads limited more by mass or by volume?

[Darth Wong]

You know, watching this debate, it struck me that the cost of antimatter production might explain why photorps never have the kind of enormous yield that people expect them to have: they can only afford to put minute quantities of antimatter into their torps. Perhaps they really can make these big 64-megaton torpedoes, but it would take a really long time to charge one up with that much antimatter because the feed system can't load it that fast (really, why do people assume it's like pumping water through a hose) and antimatter is a valuable resource, so they only use that kind of yield for extraordinary operations.

I'd always just assumed they did contain about a Kg, but were only about 10% efficient at best.

But it does solve quite a few problems to theorize that a standard torpedo "tactical load" of antimatter is much smaller (the greatly decreased mass means that the AM should be far easier to contain and the torps in the ready rack should be much more resistant to accidentally going off due to shock or damage to the ship). It also explains why you don't see them pumping out torpedoes in battle the way people typically expect them to; it takes time to load in the tactical AM load for any torps but the first salvo.

But at the same time, we have the potential for much more powerful torpedoes if they have effectively unlimited time to load them up, eg- for use in triggering seismic disturbances on planets or for mass-destruction bombardment of planetary surfaces. The time delay for loading AM into a torp may even be non-linear, ie- there is a logarithmic or exponential progression so that it takes a very long time to carefully load a full 1.5kg charge into a torp. This would be logical after all, since the danger level associated with AM containment in the torp and its small (thus presumably weak) containment system will increase with the amount of load it's carrying.

[Patrick Degan]

Several of these problems would have been solved if just a little thought had been applied in the writing process. Suppose that instead of basing the photon torpedo around the idea of a missile with a M/AM warhead (with the thruster units and the containment machinery and hazardous antimatter storage for the warhead), they instead had made it nothing more than a 1kg slug encased in a force-bubble and impelled to a velocity of .87c by the launch tube? The energy released on impact with an object (or a planetary surface) would equal out to about the same as a 20MT nuclear warhead. And just about any 1kg mass would do —even compressed ship's garbage. It would make the photon torpedo system a fancier-than-usual mass driver, but it would have made the weapon an allied development of the warp drive and the term "photon" would have referred to the slug's total conversion to radiation on impact with a target.

Around that concept, the idea that a single starship could inflict a devestating planetary bombardment on an enemy world and effectively destroy every surface installation without ever running out of torpedoes before the job got done would have been quite plausible. The idea that the photorps could knock down a ship's shields by repeated impacts until one gets through and destroys the ship would have been quite plausible —and have added realistic danger to any combat situation in an episode or movie. It would make a surprise attack from a decloaking Klingon or Romulan ship a far more dangerous proposition for our heroes in their ship. And the writers wouldn't have had to worry about nonsense like "torpedo frequencies" or the enemy ship's shield frequencies because they'd have had a nice, simple brute-force weapon at their disposal for a script.

Just a small sample of the scripting ideas the Trek writers have cheated themselves out of over the years by always going for the most ridiculously complex, technobabble-laden solution to any and every problem.

[Darth Wong]

The problem with that idea is that the entire vessel would have to built around the launch mechanism because the recoil would be devastating. And there would be no way to aim the weapon without altering the heading of the entire ship. Mind you, that would create plenty of script-writing opportunities where the actual tactics of space combat could be described and shown in a somewhat compelling way, as opposed to the "you can tell how badly they're doing by how many sparks fly out of the panels" technique of generating tension. There would be room for a captain's tactical skill to really shine through if space combat were based around such weapons, because you have to try and get the enemy ship into your line of fire, while you have to desperately avoid getting into his line of fire.

[Patrick Degan]

The problem with that idea is that the entire vessel would have to built around the launch mechanism because the recoil would be devastating. And there would be no way to aim the weapon without altering the heading of the entire ship. Mind you, that would create plenty of script-writing opportunities where the actual tactics of space combat could be described and shown in a somewhat compelling way, as opposed to the "you can tell how badly they're doing by how many sparks fly out of the panels" technique of generating tension. There would be room for a captain's tactical skill to really shine through if space combat were based around such weapons, because you have to try and get the enemy ship into your line of fire, while you have to desperately avoid getting into his line of fire.

Hmm... there is that. You'd probably have to have a technobabble solution to disposing of the recoil problem, but even with that, it's a far less dumb idea than what's been piled on over the years; particularly with the resorts to quantum torpedoes and transphasic torpedoes. And it would indeed enhance the script value of the captain's skills.

[Patrick Degan]

I should add that, given the technical objection mentioned above, my invention of the photon torpedo might simply have to be classified under Suspension of Disbelief rules. But it would seem to be a simpler yet more devestating destructive mechanism than what's been proposed by the Star Trek writers since 1982.

[NecronLord]

Yes it is. For starters it needs an active gravitics/magnetism based containment system that the nuclear warhead does NOT. THEN it needs a way to make as much as possible of the reactant to REACT as instantly as possible. Mind you so does the nuke, but I very much doubt the M/AM one is SIMPLER than the one for the nuke.

Yes. And the mechanism used to contain it is highly reliable, everywhere but in the warp cores. We never hear of the AM bottles destabilising, for example.

Um-since when do transporters CANONICALLY convert stuff to energy?

Every time McCoy talks about his objections to being turned into energy and beamed around like a radio wave? Voyager actually has an episode (Prime Factors) all about it, where they find a race that uses a transporter that folds space instead of matter-energy-matter conversion.

Because of-what, exactly?

Because the Ferengi can make a profit in shipping stem bolts interstellar on antimatter fuelled ships, for a start (DS9, Prophet Motive). Clearly the fuel for these ships is not particularly expensive.

Except modern-day nukes come in dial-a-yield variants, too... WITHOUT having to vary the amount of reactant on-the-fly.

And dial-a-yeild, as I went out of my way to say before some fool brought it up, is not anywhere near as flexible.

Than WHAT, pray tell?

Than the fizzle you seem to imply.

And they considerably lack the secondary, tertiary, etc explosions all over the place a M/AM weapon of your design would produce.

They have a lack of any effects resembling a real explosive weapon of any concievable type. They actually produce effects on impact that are literally impossible on some occasions. See TDiC effects.

Except that kilogram of antimatter will NOT react with the casing in anything approaching one go, and only a minuscule fraction of that will actually hit the shields.

So... hundreds of gigajoules then.

Curious, didn't you just argue they WOULD have?

Quite. The point is that there's no evidence that shields require umpteen megatons to overload them either. Quite the opposite. Even a fizzling antimatter bomb detonated against them would do damage.

Do the terms 'plasma vulnerability' and 'frequency vulnerability' mean anything to you? We have SEEN Starfleet ships being hit by multiple photon torpedoes and they did NOT immediately go kablooey (as you yourself admitted earlier on).

Yes. Which means that photons don't have the firepower to drop the shields of a large ship. (In the case of the previously mentioned 400 gigawatt weapon, this would be what one needs to drop a large ship's shields)

When launched at transluminal speeds. When launched STL barring a few TOS outliers their speed is nothing to brag about.

I know.

And are you telling me that Treknology has advanced far enough to safely produce and handle antimatter but NOT far enough to make a maybe-MT range missile of photorp size? You gotta be kidding me.

Given the lack of anyone ever using such missiles, ever, I'd be inclined to say that they don't exist. Either nuclear weapons are completely forgotten by the weapons designers, or they see no reason to use them.

[NecronLord]

Incidentally, I too like the photon-torpedo as a super-mass-driver idea. It would make battles, such as in TWoK (where they'd obviously have to implement this first) much more interesting, and make Kirk's three-dimensional manouvering victory more sensible.

That said, it would presumably appear (you'd have to have some shiny effect) as a sort of beam-weapon looking device, which would be a continuity problem.

[Patrick Degan]

Um-since when do transporters CANONICALLY convert stuff to energy?

That was how Kirk described the function of the transporter to the Abraham Lincoln entity in "The Savage Curtain". A "matter/energy scrambler". Kirk used it as an analogy to Trelaine's machinery used to create the drawing room and Earthlike environment on Gothos (to which Trelaine replied that the transporter was a "crude example of a far more sophisticated process") in "The Squire Of Gothos".

[Darth Wong]

Um-since when do transporters CANONICALLY convert stuff to energy?

That was how Kirk described the function of the transporter to the Abraham Lincoln entity in "The Savage Curtain". A "matter/energy scrambler". Kirk used it as an analogy to Trelaine's machinery used to create the drawing room and Earthlike environment on Gothos (to which Trelaine replied that the transporter was a "crude example of a far more sophisticated process") in "The Squire Of Gothos".

Does a modern nuclear submarine commander have a nuclear physics degree? Is it entirely possible that he could get the concept wrong, or that it has been grossly oversimplified for his benefit?