Star Wars>Star Trek

[Darth Wong]

Can you give a reason why this is not at all possible?

Must be easy to debate when you get to make up arbitrary assumptions and then declare that the other person has to prove they're impossible.

Here's one for ya: quantum torpedoes are powered by bubble gum. Given the precedent for unrealistic science in Star Trek, can you prove that's not possible? The bubble gum is necessary because Borg shields can't adapt to it.

I understand your point, however I'm attempting to employ parsimony in regards to cubes being destroyed by Voyager's torpedoes.

Exactly what the fuck do you think "parsimony" means? Arbitrary assumptions about the reasons for an event are OK?

IE: Voyager fired torpedoes, the cubes exploded. The first one didn't right away, but this can easily be dismissed as warhead detonators not being perfect. The second cube did explode violently the instant the single torpedo hit it.

And how the fuck does "parsimony" lead to the conclusion that the torps must have been orders of magnitude more powerful than previous torps?

But instead I'm hearing a far more complex theory that seems to assume the obvious chain reaction style cube explosion in FC is the same thing going on in the cubes destroyed Voyager, even though they look nothing alike.

I see you learned your definition of "parsimony" from the fucking creationists.

I find this quite confusing, to be honest.

And yet, despite your confusion, you seem quite confident that you are correct. Why is this?

[Singular Intellect]

So 'suddenly massively more powerful' is 'simpler' than 'uses known weaknesses'?

Given you seem to be asserting the chain reaction style destruction of the cube in First Contact and the exploding cubes in Voyager finale are in fact the same thing going on, I'd like to see the evidence. The explosions look nothing alike:

First Contact explosion

I'm trying to find a video of Voyager destroying the cubes...I'll post it if I find one...

Regardless, even if we do go with your assumption that Voyager is in fact taking advantages of inherit Borg cube weaknesses...Voyager did it with one or two torpedoes tops. It took the entire Federation fleet opening to do the same, and the Borg cube in question was heavily damaged to begin with.

I fail to see how this is not a demostration of improved firepower?

[Singular Intellect]

Exactly what the fuck do you think "parsimony" means? Arbitrary assumptions about the reasons for an event are OK?

My understanding of parsimony and the definition I was attempting to employ was "make as few assumptions as possible".

If you can point out where I'm incorrect I'd be glad to admit it.

And how the fuck does "parsimony" lead to the conclusion that the torps must have been orders of magnitude more powerful than previous torps?

They have to be more powerful, although certainly not necessarily to the magnitude Stark suggested. Even if going with Stark's position the torpedoes were exploiting a inherit weakness of Borg cubes, why does it take a fleet of Federation ships using many torpedoes and phaser blasts to destroy one while Voyager only needed one or two single torpedoes?

Furthermore all cubes in question were struck at different locations, which makes me question this inherit weakness exploit theory. How are these different locations (and claimed weak points) being detected? In FC we knew how, but in Voyager if that's the case how are they doing it? That calls for an additional assumption, that Voyager now had technology either added or built in the torpedoes that seek out dynamic weak points on different cubes.

And yet, despite your confusion, you seem quite confident that you are correct. Why is this?

My confusion lies in regards to a theory making as few assumptions as possible being less favored compared to one that makes more.

I'm prepared to admit I'm wrong, but key issues I've brought up need to be addressed, in my humble opinion.

[Darth Wong]

Exactly what the fuck do you think "parsimony" means? Arbitrary assumptions about the reasons for an event are OK?

My understanding of parsimony and the definition I was attempting to employ was "make as few assumptions as possible".

If you can point out where I'm incorrect I'd be glad to admit it.

Where exactly did this "understanding" come from, since the real definition of parsimony is to use as few terms as necessary? Since the mechanisms that Stark mentions are all known characteristics from other incidents, they are absolutely necessary to any theory of operation of the Borg cubes, you idiot.

And how the fuck does "parsimony" lead to the conclusion that the torps must have been orders of magnitude more powerful than previous torps?

They have to be more powerful, although certainly not necessarily to the magnitude Stark suggested.

Bullshit. They could be half as powerful and still get the job done, if they get past the Borg defenses. We have precedent for Borg cubes having very weak structures (from BOBW) and for Borg cubes having critical points (from STFC). These terms are known factors, and are necessary to explain those other incidents. Your idea of "parsimony" seems to be ignoring all terms that get in your way.

Even if going with Stark's position the torpedoes were exploiting a inherit weakness of Borg cubes, why does it take a fleet of Federation ships using many torpedoes and phaser blasts to destroy one while Voyager only needed one or two single torpedoes?

Because Voyager had developed some way of getting the torp past its defenses, moron. Need I remind you that they had earlier killed a Borg ship by simply beaming a bomb into it? Does that mean the bomb must have been far more powerful than any weapon they'd ever used before? Your "logic" is a joke.

Furthermore all cubes in question were struck at different locations, which makes me question this inherit weakness exploit theory.

Oh right, as if the idea of critical points of failure is somehow negated if there are more than one. You're just full of non sequiturs, aren't you?

How are these different locations (and claimed weak points) being detected?

Who the fuck needs to detect exactly where they are, if you can get an armour-piercing torpedo past its defenses? If it goes through its defenses and penetrates through its hull, it explodes inside the ship and it's almost certain to hit the critical points, isn't it? Once again, you demonstrate your flair for childish pseudo-logic.

In FC we knew how, but in Voyager if that's the case how are they doing it? That calls for an additional assumption, that Voyager now had technology either added or built in the torpedoes that seek out dynamic weak points on different cubes.

Do you always think this way, or are you just trying to be deliberately stupid and/or dishonest for the purpose of this thread?

And yet, despite your confusion, you seem quite confident that you are correct. Why is this?

My confusion lies in regards to a theory making as few assumptions as possible being less favored compared to one that makes more.

I'm prepared to admit I'm wrong, but key issues I've brought up need to be addressed, in my humble opinion.

The issues you brought up are bullshit, based on pseudo-logic. The practice of making up totally unnecessary predictions in order to discredit a theory is, as I said earlier, something that you've obviously cribbed from creationist debate tactics. And your idea of "parsimony" is a massive distortion of the real concept. You are ignoring terms that are necessitated by other incidents, dumbshit.

[Stark]

Given you seem to be asserting the chain reaction style destruction of the cube in First Contact and the exploding cubes in Voyager finale are in fact the same thing going on, I'd like to see the evidence. The explosions look nothing alike:

First Contact explosion

I'm trying to find a video of Voyager destroying the cubes...I'll post it if I find one...

Regardless, even if we do go with your assumption that Voyager is in fact taking advantages of inherit Borg cube weaknesses...Voyager did it with one or two torpedoes tops. It took the entire Federation fleet opening to do the same, and the Borg cube in question was heavily damaged to begin with.

I fail to see how this is not a demostration of improved firepower?

Check this, scamp: they had to dig a hole. Transphasic torpedoes (gee I wonder what the name means) may simply be optimised for hitting such weak points without having to dig a massive hole. This would explain the delay in the first cube (weak point distant from impact zone), without causing a problem with the non-delay second cube (weak point very near impact zone) and much better than 'lol poor detonators on magic 1000x power torpdedoes'.

Are you simply not thinking about this? Picard led the fleet to a critical system of some kind which instantly destroyed the cube. Thus, you DON'T need huge amounts of firepower to destroy one, and indeed much of the fire the Fed fleet poured onto the cube was largely irrelevant and hit nothing important.

[B5B7]

Re the claim made in the original post - the Death Star disagrees - this represents a number of new technological developments to make up the whole.

[jegs2]

Wise me(N) don't need it, and fools won't heed it. -My dad

Wise men, my bad. I am not that wise yet.

Which verse in the Bible is this?

[Batman]

Re the claim made in the original post - the Death Star disagrees - this represents a number of new technological developments to make up the whole.

Um-which ones? The difference between the Death Stars and the rest of imperial military technology was one of scale, nothing more. There's no technology there that wasn't already available during OR times (especially given that the project apparently has its origins in the Clone Wars era).

[Darth Servo]

Regardless, even if we do go with your assumption that Voyager is in fact taking advantages of inherit Borg cube weaknesses...Voyager did it with one or two torpedoes tops. It took the entire Federation fleet opening to do the same, and the Borg cube in question was heavily damaged to begin with.

With the exception of the E-E, the Fed ships were pretty hammered too.

[AdmiralKanos]

His logic looks like this:

"Weapon X could not penetrate Y's defenses, even with hundreds of shots. But Weapon Y could, therefore Weapon Y must be hundreds of times more powerful than Weapon X."

The problem with this reasoning is that we have plenty of examples where it does not hold true, therefore the logic is clearly fallacious. One can even point out a purely hypothetical example where it would not be true, and that would be sufficient to show that the logic is fallacious. If the logic is fallacious, that doesn't necessarily mean it is false, as Bubble Boy points out in his desperation, but it does mean that you need more evidence in order to conclude that it is true.

A weapon which is hundreds of times more powerful is far more likely to penetrate, but you can't invert the logic to conclude that a weapon which is more likely to penetrate must be hundreds of times more powerful.

[B5B7]

Re the claim made in the original post - the Death Star disagrees - this represents a number of new technological developments to make up the whole.

Um-which ones? The difference between the Death Stars and the rest of imperial military technology was one of scale, nothing more. There's no technology there that wasn't already available during OR times (especially given that the project apparently has its origins in the Clone Wars era).

I am not intimately aquainted with the historical technology of Star Wars.
So, there may not be anything really new in it [therefore the claim in my cited post is just pulled out of my arse
]
However, I was thinking by analogy to real world.
Quite often, creating something much bigger than previous similar structures requires new construction techniques, innovative calculations, etc, and during develoment of such, new things are often invented or at least modified to deal with unique problems that arise.

So, there may not be any new technology created for quite a while in SW but there is definitely new developments in the way it is applied - therefore not a static society as implied by OP.

[Starglider]

The fantasy-Ent-D cannon punching through the flat part at the front of a Negh'Var is visually impressive, but then so was the bird of prey's photon torpedo punching all the way through the Ent-A's saucer section (in The Undiscovered Country). Given how big that phaser cannon is, it doesn't appear to represent any significant advance in power density. In fact it just seems to be the Federation getting enough of a clue to equip its battleships with proportionate sized weapons instead of dinky phaser strips. In this respect they are playing catch up with the Klingons, Cardassians and Romulans, who have all been fitting their ships with large forward beam emitters from at least the mid-TNG era.

[apocolypse]

Bubble Boy. What you fail to realize is that the Borg utilize a defensive system not found with other known Trek races. And given that this weapon was apparently created in response to the Borg ("anti-Borg weaponry" or some such I believe it was called) then it is not an unfair assumption to believe it was created with the intent to exploit the Borg's unique defensive structures and weaknesses.

[Master_Baerne]

Star Wars tech dosen't increase because they've hit the pinnacle of possible technology. Reasonably, Star Trek will hit that too, but that won't stop the GE winning from numbers if not superior firepower.

You know the firepower and numbers Trek will have once they reach their technological peak? DO share.

I don't. That's the point. Presumably, Wars was, at some point, as powerful as Trek. It makes sense to me that, given an ungodly amount of time, Trek would become comparable-not neccesarily equal, but comparable-to the GE. Of course, Star Wars would get the same amount of time to come up with stuff, so they're screwed either way...

[Feil]

It makes sense to me that, given an ungodly amount of time, Trek would become comparable-not neccesarily equal, but comparable-to the GE.

No, it doesn't. Trek may surpass Star Wars by three orders of magnitude when its technology finally reaches its peak. It may have reached its peak in only a few decades from the 'current' Trek. We have absolutely no way of knowing, which means that anything we say about it comes down to pure speculation, which is as useless as anything can be.

We can only say with reasonable certainty that Trek seems to be increasing in technological and scientific knowledge, while Wars seems to be stagnant in those areas (but improving in the realms of mechanical and structural engineering, if the huge increases in warship size are any indicator) and to have remained stagnant for so long as to indicate that it has reached the peak of its technological capability.

[PainRack]

My point is that mankind went from bows and arrows to phasers and quantum torps in star trek in a thousand years, from horse drawn buggies to far faster than light speed.

Over the course of about ten-thousand years, humanity (in the Star Trek universe) managed to go from bows and arrows to a working warp drive capable of achieving lightspeed.

From there, humanity has made very little progress. Phasers, photon torpodoes, transporters, and assorted other "treknology" already existed in the galaxy, and humanity acquired it primarily via trade with other races, especially the Vulcans.

To put it bluntly, since making contact with the Vulcans, humanity has made startlingly little technological progress of their own. They have acquired an assortment of technology from other races around the galaxy, but they have hardly invented anything.

That being the case, the prediction that a Federation starship built five "generations" after the Enterprise-E would easily defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer is dubious at best.

Hasn't the only real new invention been the holodeck? And along with it, hard light holograms that produce the dr?

EDIT: The topic was dead...let it die. ~GR