General Order 24

[Darth Ruinus]

im new here, great website btw, read it alot to see the trekkies getting smacked down

well anyways, i was arguing with a trekkies on youtube over the video star wars vs star trek, and i shot down most of the arguments quite easily, this one trekkie brought up something called General Order 24, which sounds like a cheap DBZ , i told him that it was never shown, never actually done on screen or anywhere, just mentioned, afterwards he brougth up the subject of canon, and he keeps saying that the EU is not canon, and as far as i know it is,

so, can you guys please tell me what this General Order 24 thing is and how to refute it, i got the canon idea down, but the trekkie just wont back down

thanks appreciate it

[Isolder74]

it was shown in TOS as a bluff by Kirk. Whether its a real order or not is up in the air.

As for the EU isn'tt canon, the Lucusfilm policy is that unless listed as otherwise it is.

Not much you can do if you don't accept that

[Darth Ruinus]

wait the EU ISNT canon? i thought that it was so long as it didnt contradict the films

[PayBack]

No he just said it IS canon.

The "As for the EU isn'tt canon" bit is just to let you know he's referring to that part of your post. So I believe your understanding of canon is correct.

[Teleros]

It's only not canon if it being canon would screw your Trekkie cultist arguments up .

[Isolder74]

is sorry the typo demons really have me today.....

As for the EU isn't canon, the Lucusfilm policy is that it is unless listed as otherwise.

[Covenant]

Also, remember, despite what the order calls for (IE, decimating a civilization) the maximum output of the ordered ship is equal to it's maximum output before the order. They don't secretly horde planetbuster munitions just in case they get a general order 24.

It would be akin to BDZ, but much much weaker. Federation weapons do not crush planets or melt the crust. However, razing the surface of buildings is sufficent to destroy a civilization, so there's no reason to assume that General Order 24 is anything more than what they said it was--a prolonged series of strikes against a planetary target.

As for the Order within the Federation's situation, remember, TOS is set in a warlike, militaristic setting always on the brink, with Kirk operating mostly on his own and with a great deal of authority to kill at his own discretion when outside of Federation space. It's much more like earlier ages of sea power where far-flung captains had great latitude when dealing with situations due to the inability to communicate or move people around.

You're perfectly able to accept the existance of GO-24 the way it's depicted, as a completely serious, completely earnest air raid that'd wipe out a civilization. But since the Enterprise has a maximum weapon output we can already calculate, we can also show that their weapons wouldn't scratch a planetary shield, so against a SW world it's rather irrelevent, and after TOS and before TNG, the Federation makes DRAMATIC changes to it's military and basically removes it's own balls to get a peace accord with the Klingons, so it's likely GO-24 was pulled completely when the Federation moved away from it's old gunship diplomacy days and started putting Dolphin Tanks and Preschools on their battleships.

[Darth Ruinus]

shit, my mind nearly exploded on that misunderstanding, ok thats what i thought, the damn Trekkie keeps saying that Lucas can override anything on canon, which i dont know much on that, but i pointed out that Lucas has never directly said that the EU is NOT canon, and he just doesnt see this

thanks, appreciate it guys

[PayBack]

I think lucas can override anything, however IIRC all he as said is that his period of time in the SW universe is the movies and the other time periods before, between, and after the movies are covered by the EU. The EU can also expand upon elements shown in the movies. If they conflict, the movies win.

[Darth Servo]

On of the better counters to TOS wankery is to point out that in The Doomsday Machine they needed to blow up an entire starship just to get an explosion weighing in at LESS than 100 MT which while would do a lot of damage to the planet and eco system, it wouldn't come anywhere close to depopulating it.

[Socar15]

On of the better counters to TOS wankery is to point out that in The Doomsday Machine they needed to blow up an entire starship just to get an explosion weighing in at LESS than 100 MT which while would do a lot of damage to the planet and eco system, it wouldn't come anywhere close to depopulating it.

Actually, it was stated in the episode that an overloaded impulse engine (not the entire ship) would result in a 97.935 MT nuclear explosion.

[Patrick Degan]

I believe that the writers implied that the weaponry of the Enterprise packed about as much destructive power as contemporary nuclear arsenals of TOS' day. General Order 24 as well as "Mirror, Mirror" suggests that a single starship can "lay waste" a planet, but this would appear to be about the range of destruction as you'd expect (or was popularly imagined) from a full-scale nuclear war: the annihilation of civilisation and death-counts in the hundreds of millions. Bombing back into the Stone Age. The notion that this can be inflated into BDZ-level planetary devestation is, of course, bullshit.

[Darth Servo]

On of the better counters to TOS wankery is to point out that in The Doomsday Machine they needed to blow up an entire starship just to get an explosion weighing in at LESS than 100 MT which while would do a lot of damage to the planet and eco system, it wouldn't come anywhere close to depopulating it.

Actually, it was stated in the episode that an overloaded impulse engine (not the entire ship) would result in a 97.935 MT nuclear explosion.

The point remains, their weapons clearly weren't capable of producing a 100 MT explosion.

[Socar15]

The point remains, their weapons clearly weren't capable of producing a 100 MT explosion.

Actually, it was also stated that the Doomsday Machine rendered anti-matter inert, so photon torpedoes were essentially useless (not to mention the M/AM reactor, their primary source of power). Thus, the only way of destroying it was to use the fusion explosion from the impulse engines (and it should be noted that while it was stated a single impulse engine overloaded would create a 97.935 MT explosion, Kirk ended up ordering Scotty to set it to where multiple impulse engines would overload, so it wasn't really clear how much it took to destroy the machine).

[NecronLord]

GO 24 being a bluff is a very lame idea indeed. It's possible that it was just a pre-arranged code word that Kirk made up himself. But that's rather put to the sword by the end of the episode, where the crew discuss whether Kirk was serious. What's more, Scotty actually programs the computer for the attack, as I recall.

Also telling is that in Captain Kirk's opinion, a GO24 attack wouldn't have killed more people than a normal Vendekarian attack, but that it would have ended their ability to make war, and destroyed the culture that allowed them to disintegrate millions of people per year without feeling any significant impact on their lives. From that we can prove that the casualties involved would be on the order of millions, and not a complete depopulation, despite the obviously extensive destruction of logistics and support structures like power plants, transporters, refineries, water supplies, railways, roads, that sort of thing.

It's certainly not one hundred megaton point blasts, and indeed, while it can be argued that high kilotons to single figure megatons might be possible, they wouldn't even need that. Single figure kiloton phaser pulses would be more than sufficient to lay waste to cities.

It's nothing like Base Delta Zero, and to be frank, it doesn't need to be. Even with 10 Kt phaser pulses (IIRC the Ent-Nil was calced as at least that last year) firing once every two seconds, you could put out the equivalent of an entire nuclear exchange quite easily within a few hours, causing mass deaths, and the total collapse of the affected society.

[Ted C]

General Order 24 originates specifically in the TOS episode "A Taste of Armageddon". If I recall Kirk's description correctly, the Enterprise would orbit Eminiar VII and systematically destroy its cities from orbit.

That's a long way short of Base Delta Zero, the Imperial Order to not only destroy cities, but the entire surface of the planet, rendering it utterly uninhabitable.

[Kane Starkiller]

It could easily be that General Order 24 itself was real and did called for orbital bombardment but Kirk simply exaggerated it's effects to the inhabitants of the planet. Either way we know that Constitution class can't have more than megaton/s firepower.

[Darth Ruinus]

now the Trekkie brought this up

"Saxton used to constantly argue on Star Wars Vs Star Trek Debate boards and was very mocking of anybody who disliked Trek. All his math is based on asseumptions, where, because of his bias, he assumes HUGE starting numbers, or unreasonable figures, and then works his math from a fundamentally flawed starting point. The fact that Gary Sarli's recent work retconned Saxton's laughable figures, with Chee's approval, says all that need be said. "

i dont know who this Gary Sarli guy is, but what did he do, according to this guy? any help or clarification would be appreciated

[NecronLord]

It could easily be that General Order 24 itself was real and did called for orbital bombardment but Kirk simply exaggerated it's effects to the inhabitants of the planet. Either way we know that Constitution class can't have more than megaton/s firepower.

The point is, it doesn't need that firepower to have the described effects. The United States of America's nuclear aresenal largely lacks that firepower, and is quite up to GO24ing any country it fancies.

[Ryushikaze]

now the Trekkie brought this up

"Saxton used to constantly argue on Star Wars Vs Star Trek Debate boards and was very mocking of anybody who disliked Trek. All his math is based on asseumptions, where, because of his bias, he assumes HUGE starting numbers, or unreasonable figures, and then works his math from a fundamentally flawed starting point. The fact that Gary Sarli's recent work retconned Saxton's laughable figures, with Chee's approval, says all that need be said. "

i dont know who this Gary Sarli guy is, but what did he do, according to this guy? any help or clarification would be appreciated

First off, call this guy on the bullshit he's spewing about Saxton. It's quite the baldfaced lie, and calling him on it is priority one.

Secondly, Sarli didn't retcon the numbers, he tried to retcon the way you get to those numbers, though this has not been officially published as far as my memory serves, and since Saxton's numbers are still in the Complete ICS's, they're still canon.

Of course, the trekkie also lying about Saxton's methodology. His figures were derived from on screen or in-book events, and attempting to find a lower estimate of the necessary power required to accomplish each task.

[Kane Starkiller]

"Saxton used to constantly argue on Star Wars Vs Star Trek Debate boards and was very mocking of anybody who disliked Trek.

Say what is the screenname of the user you are arguing? I'd bet good money that it's one of Darkstar's buttboys currently stationed on starfleedjedi.net.
Ask him to provide evidence in the form of links to those supposed vs arguments and insults.

All his math is based on asseumptions, where, because of his bias, he assumes HUGE starting numbers, or unreasonable figures, and then works his math from a fundamentally flawed starting point.

By all means ask the idiot if he can name specific examples when Dr. Saxton did this.

The fact that Gary Sarli's recent work retconned Saxton's laughable figures, with Chee's approval, says all that need be said. "

Now I KNOW it is one of those morons from starfleetIDIOT.net.
If the recent work was retconned how come it was RESTATED in the newest ICS which is official material unlike Sarli's bullshit theories? Whooops.

[Darth Ruinus]

sadly this isnt in one of the big league Star Wars VS Star Trek sites, its on Youtube

well anyways ill provide the link so you guys can see the guys arguments first hand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNxhrPaaCA4

im using the screen name RojOdio
the Trekkie, or the one causing the bigger problems is TheRedFear

most of our arguments are near the bottom, since they are the most recent ones, Youtube hasnt rearranged them in comment reply format yet, so they all look like seperate posts, where in actually they are almost all replies to the original GO24 post

[Ted C]

"Saxton used to constantly argue on Star Wars Vs Star Trek Debate boards and was very mocking of anybody who disliked Trek."

To my knowledge, Dr. Saxton has never participated in BBS debates about Star Wars vs Star Trek. He has maintained his own Star Wars site and generally shown little interest in other SciFi franchises and no interest in versus debates.

[Darth Ruinus]

holy shit, this kid is just pulling shit out of his ass, he says that Lucas said the EU is not canon, because he said is it not in his own universe, a parallel universe, and he said Gary Sarli's calculations (which he shows no evidence of at all) has been retconned into star wars canon (which again he shows no proof of anything, he just tells me to Google it) and he says that Saxtons calcs are wrong because they are based on the notion that one ISD can DBZ a planet by itself, which the following quote which i showed proves otherwise!!

"Cloaked Star Destroyer!" Han snapped back, twisting the helm yoke viciously, the whole plan suddenly coming clear. "That battle back there over Bothawui- all those ships beating each other into rubble- with a Star Destroyer waiting hidden here, ready to finish them all off and maybe burn Bothawui in the bargain. No survivors, no witnesses, only a battle everyone in the New Republic would blame everyone else for." VOTF p.617

ive asked for proof on his behalf various times, and he has shown nothing, any one got any suggestions?

[PayBack]

I'm far from an expert on canon but from reading his comment on the EU not being part of his own little universe, it was obvious Lucas meant periods of time. IIRC he even specifically states that he means the movies are his personal slices of time and the EU can take care of other periods. Despite his wording about universes, he's talking about time not space. The poor bastard didn't realise his comments were going to be picked over by pedantic semantics whores.