Hey Sovereign, you lying sack of shit ...

[Patrick Degan]

That would have to be a pretty big angle to spread the beams out from 10 metres apart to 2 km apart.

No it wouldn't. Not if Enterprise was shooting at a great distance.

Hey, check it out.

See, they are converging.

Cool, it almost looks as if that "mountain" is getting bombed by the original Enterprise.

If Archer thinks that this little outcrop is comparable to Mt. McKinley, then either his father had a weird sense of humour when teaching the young lad his geography, or Mt. McKinley's been worn down to a 50 metre high nub by Archer's time.

[Gil Hamilton]

Cool, it almost looks as if that "mountain" is getting bombed by the original Enterprise.

Heh heh, that's exactly the reason why I put the gratuitous glow effect on the lines.

[Typhonis 1]

or its shape reminded him of McKinley

[Galaxy]

And how far away do you think this ship was, hmm? And the beams themselves widened over this great distance by exactly the same amount as the spread widened? What a fortunate coincidence! How do they expect to hit anything with weapons that spread to 2 km apart, when they explicitly targeted a single point?

I don't know. However far it takes for the 1 or 2 degree separation to go from 10meter to 2 km.

Hey, check it out.

See, they are converging.

The beams only appear to converge because they're traveling away from the view point. If you go outside and look down the street you'll see that the road appears narrower the farther away it is.
Even a slight degree of separation would appear converging from the viewpoint shown.

[Vympel]

I don't know. However far it takes for the 1 or 2 degree separation to go from 10meter to 2 km.

What a dumbass. Do you even know what the hell you're talking about?

[Joe Momma]

And how far away do you think this ship was, hmm? And the beams themselves widened over this great distance by exactly the same amount as the spread widened? What a fortunate coincidence! How do they expect to hit anything with weapons that spread to 2 km apart, when they explicitly targeted a single point?

I don't know. However far it takes for the 1 or 2 degree separation to go from 10meter to 2 km.

I don't agree with the 2 km distance between beam impacts, but just for fun, I put together some numbers for it. These numbers were derived assuming the distance between the emitters was 10 meters and distance between the impact points was 2 km. Degrees are measured in the beams' divergence from parallel (if that makes any sense). All of this is assuming that I did the math correctly and that my admittedly-rough measurements weren't off too badly.

Distance from Enterprise to target: About 57 km distance assuming 2 degrees of separation, 114 km distance with 1 degree of separation.

Spread of beams' width (measured by comparing beam width to distance between the beams): each beam would have to spread from ~1 meter wide to ~375 meters width (Just take a look at how large the beams are compared to their separation in the impact picture). Angle of spread is ~.5 degrees.

The beams are spreading apart faster than they are spreading in width (spread of distance is 200x from firing to impact, spread of beams' width is 37.5x).

I was going to compare the final beam width to the length of the Enterprise but I couldn't find an agreed-upon measurement. Suggested lengths range from 190m-230 m. The official site has no figure whatsoever on length. Either way, you're looking at the Enterprise's length being between 1/3 to 2/3 the final width of a single beam. That's some serious spread.

If I screwed up the math or measurements somewhere, please correct me. I've left more advanced bits (like cross-referencing the above to see if the combination of that beam spread and that beam divergence would look anything like it does in the pictures), as well as what the effects would be of spreading out the stated power output over that wide an area (at ~375 m wide, each beam's impact would cover ~110,500 cubic meters, for a total of ~221,000 cubic meters with both beams).

Also, are the phase-cannons in fact DET weapons or do they act more like the phasers of the other series? I don't how much it matters seeing as phasers have always been heavily material-dependent for their effects, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

-- Joe Momma

[The Yosemite Bear]

<Devil's Advocate=on>Hey who knows after the Mining for resources, the Nuclear Wars, THe Eugenics Wars, McKinley should be like tiny by now. <\Devil's Advocate>

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Only a complete idiot would spread out the beams.

[Dodge]

The beams are convergent, and appear VERY widely spaced if the mountain is 6km high!!

I reckon the picture shows beams from the starship at close range to a small hill that kids sledge down in winter...

Sorry, Sov. Your argument and logic are at loggerheads.

Also, perhaps the people who make Star Trek didn't do their math either...?

[Darth Servo]

Only a complete idiot would spread out the beams.

Given what we've seen on the show, the possibility of stupidity cannot be ruled out.

[Master of Ossus]

Maybe during WWIII Mt. McKinley was hit by a hell of a lot of nuclear missiles that reduced the once mighty mountain to a gopher-mound size pile of dirt.

[Lord Pounder]

The beams are convergent, and appear VERY widely spaced if the mountain is 6km high!!

I reckon the picture shows beams from the starship at close range to a small hill that kids sledge down in winter...

Sorry, Sov. Your argument and logic are at loggerheads.

Also, perhaps the people who make Star Trek didn't do their math either...?

For i ship to hit a 6KM mountain with two beams that fat apart the Enterprise would have to have performed Saucer Sep or something, No Trek ship is that big. Fact it the rabid Trekies have dug them selves another hole they can't get outta. Galaxy, Soverign, just say "Consession Accepted and we'll make the pain stop.

[Gil Hamilton]

The beams only appear to converge because they're traveling away from the view point. If you go outside and look down the street you'll see that the road appears narrower the farther away it is.
Even a slight degree of separation would appear converging from the viewpoint shown.

Actually they aren't travelling away from the viewpoint, they are heading toward it.

[Galaxy]

Unlike you people, i'm not ruling out Archer's quote and the known size of mt. mckinley. Archer wouldn't have made a comment like that unless it was pretty large. And there's nothing idiotic about spreading the beams to cover a wide portion of the mountain.

[Cpt_Frank]

Unlike you people, i'm not ruling out Archer's quote and the known size of mt. mckinley. Archer wouldn't have made a comment like that unless it was pretty large. And there's nothing idiotic about spreading the beams to cover a wide portion of the mountain.

Two points:
1. The beams don't spread. Look at the picture.
2. visuals > dialogue

[Ender]

Unlike you people, i'm not ruling out Archer's quote and the known size of mt. mckinley. Archer wouldn't have made a comment like that unless it was pretty large. And there's nothing idiotic about spreading the beams to cover a wide portion of the mountain.

No, but you are ruling out the non hyperbole statement by the weapons officer on the strength of the weapon. You are also ruling out the visuals.

[Vympel]

No, but you are ruling out the non hyperbole statement by the weapons officer on the strength of the weapon. You are also ruling out the visuals.

Pathetic isn't it? A no nonsense estimation of the weapons officer on the upgraded strength of his weapons are 1 kiloton, IIRC. What do the trektards do? Go for a hyperbole statement that says a mound is 'as big as Mt Mckinley' instead. Fuck me dead what is fucking wrong with you, you stupid motherfucker?

[Darth Servo]

Unlike you people, i'm not ruling out Archer's quote and the known size of mt. mckinley. Archer wouldn't have made a comment like that unless it was pretty large. And there's nothing idiotic about spreading the beams to cover a wide portion of the mountain.

Ah yes. The captain is infallable again. No thought given to the possibility that he just might have been exaggerating. No thought given to the possibility that he might have been only refering to the uppermost peak of McKinley. No thought given to the possibility that McKinley just might have been reduced in size between now and the 22nd century in the wars that supposedly take place between now and then (the Eugenics Wars and WW3). No thought given to the possibility that the mountain may have simply reminded the captain of McKinley because of its shape as opposed to size. No thought given that the captain might have been using a figure of speech (at least for him) similar to, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse". Why bother with all of these alternate interpretations when you can simply interpret it literally to exaggerate the energy figures beyond anything we've ever seen before from the Federation.

[Ghost Rider]

Also Galaxy...other dialogue actually proves his statement if it were fact...FALSE.

I mean of course you think he meant McKinely...truly he could've never meant it as ait as big as (insert whatevr popular mountain)...so if he called that hill as big as Everest, that too must true, right, moron?

[Master of Ossus]

Unlike you people, i'm not ruling out Archer's quote and the known size of mt. mckinley. Archer wouldn't have made a comment like that unless it was pretty large. And there's nothing idiotic about spreading the beams to cover a wide portion of the mountain.

Unlike us, you're disregarding the visuals in favor of subjective dialogue. Besides, who knows what happened to Mt. McKinley during WWIII, as I said previously. If you really want the Archer quote to stand, you have to rationalize it against the visuals, first. Listen, Galaxy, the visuals clearly show that the beams were converging on the target, instead of spreading apart as they hit it. Besides, you are also disregarding Trip Tucker's dialogue, which quantified the power of the weapons in question.

[Ender]

You guys realize how pathetic those rationalizations about the mountain shrinking sound, right?

[Master of Ossus]

You guys realize how pathetic those rationalizations about the mountain shrinking sound, right?

Of course. The only real explanation is that Archer is an idiot. To be honest, I was kind of humoring Sovereign when I first brought that WWIII thing up.

[Gil Hamilton]

You guys realize how pathetic those rationalizations about the mountain shrinking sound, right?

I believe that they were joking. But the point is that the mountain certainly wasn't the size of Mt. McKinley and we've already got a power output for their phasers. I'm willing to give allowances for artistic liscense, but there was no artistic reason for the mount shown to be that small. They could have done an eye-level view shot with the mountain taking up much of the view being struck by the phaser blasts and going sky high, which would have certainly conveyed the scale of the mountain (IE large), but they showed a relative anthill. Cinematography still applies even if they are doing computer modelling.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Unlike you people, i'm not ruling out Archer's quote and the known size of mt. mckinley.

But you are ruling out the CANON STATED YIELD!

Archer wouldn't have made a comment like that unless it was pretty large.

Archer is an idiot. Pure and simple. He barely accepted help from Vulcans to save members of his crew and was too much of a goody-goody to kill a bunch of klingons.

And there's nothing idiotic about spreading the beams to cover a wide portion of the mountain.

You ignored MoO's point proving the beams were converging. Concession Accepted.

[Lord Pounder]

Does any one else here think Soverign and Galaxy are the same muppet? I really have to think they are the same person coz it would shake my faith in humanity for there to be 2 equally thick bastards with such similar names and attitudes.