Uber Constituition vs SSD

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-01-08 07:30pm

Alyeska wrote:
Darth Servo wrote:
Alyeska wrote: General order 24, level the surface of a planet.
Hit the major population centers.
Nope, General Order 24 does not indicate anything about population centers. It is a command to destroy the entire surface of a planet.

Quote please.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-01-08 07:31pm

Darth Servo wrote:
Alyeska wrote:Nope, General Order 24 does not indicate anything about population centers. It is a command to destroy the entire surface of a planet.
I beg to differ.

Scotty wrote:"All cities and installations on Eminiar VII have been located, identified and fed into our firecontrol system. In one hour forty five minutes the entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed."- Scotty, from "Taste of Armageddon" (after being given General Order 24 by Kirk)
Cities and installations. The INHABITED surface, NOT the entire planet.

Hmm, well the ST:E stated it as devestating the surface of the planet, not specific targets. So it seems that General Order 24 is much similar to BDZ, render the civilian settlements useless.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-01-08 07:38pm

Mr. Scott, prepare to execute General Order 24, in two hours! In two hours!" then he is subdued by the guards. Anan 7 asks Kirk what that order meant, and Kirk replies, "I gave my Chief Engineer the order to destroy the surface of a planet. You wanted war, and death, and I'll give it to you, on a scale you cannot imagine! In two hours, there won't be a single city left standing on this planet!"

According to E1701 anyway and since he seems to know his TOS I will take his word for it.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-01-08 07:39pm

Alyeska wrote:Hmm, well the ST:E stated it as devestating the surface of the planet, not specific targets. So it seems that General Order 24 is much similar to BDZ, render the civilian settlements useless.

ST:E? You mean Encyclopedia? Isn't it subservient to the canon episodes?

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2003-01-08 07:42pm

"Devastating" does not necessarily "mean melt the entire crust". Oh yeah, we're using "uber-high end" calcs in this thread. I guess that means we aren't being logical so that means that any and all insane extrapolations of dialogue are OK.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-01-08 07:54pm

Darth Servo wrote:
Alyeska wrote:Hmm, well the ST:E stated it as devestating the surface of the planet, not specific targets. So it seems that General Order 24 is much similar to BDZ, render the civilian settlements useless.
ST:E? You mean Encyclopedia? Isn't it subservient to the canon episodes?

No, it is not. The ST:E pulls information directly from the episodes and movies. Any extra information from the scripts or ideas not shown in the movies or episodes are added in italics. The ST:E is a canon information source because it gathers its information from canon.

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2003-01-08 08:00pm

Alyeska wrote:
No, it is not. The ST:E pulls information directly from the episodes and movies. Any extra information from the scripts or ideas not shown in the movies or episodes are added in italics. The ST:E is a canon information source because it gathers its information from canon.

I gotcha.

Still, even with the most extremely favorable figures, I
don't see how anyone can say, "Well, TOS ships are more
powerful than TNG ships."

Consequently, this argument doesn't go very far. We're left
with Federation ships that do the equivalent of terawatt-range
damage to Federation hulls, and maybe kiloton-range warheads
from photon torpedoes.

Even with the most ridiculous estimation of an Executor
class cruiser's abilities (e.g., dozens of gigawatts/small turbolaser
cannons), I don't see how the E-nil could win.

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2003-01-08 08:11pm

Alyeska wrote:No, it is not. The ST:E pulls information directly from the episodes and movies. Any extra information from the scripts or ideas not shown in the movies or episodes are added in italics. The ST:E is a canon information source because it gathers its information from canon.

Nah, that's not really the same. The biggest problem with people is that they subconciously add their own interpretations to the facts (the original information from say the shows and episodes,) then write the whole mess as the fact itself.

A good example would be Graham Kennedy's stuff about lasers. Remember this, from:
http://www.ditl.org/scitech/datnavdeflect.htm

The navigation shields also posses another intriguing property; they are immune to attack from laser weaponry. This is due to the trans-static flux effect which occurs as a by-product of the deflection process; when laser light impinges on a deflector field, the effect creates a small portal into subspace, causing the laser beam to pass harmlessly into this domain. As the beam is not subspace encased, it will re-emerge into normal space within a few milliseconds, putting it several hundred light seconds away. Since the beam never actually impacts on either the deflector shield or hull the power of the attack is irrelevant to the effect. This process is not regarded as a serious defensive measure, since laser weapons are considered obsolete by most major powers.

If this was in the ST:E, then the first line would not be italicized, since it was considered fact. The rest of course will be italicized. But is the first line really fact, or is it just Graham Kennedy's interpretation, which he then wrote as if it were fact? Most people would seem to think it is the former. Those are the potential pitfalls of taking a secondary source (like the ST:E) and assuming that its so called "facts" are really "facts."

You can't really blame them, this is just a phenomena that happens.

Kazuaki Shimazaki · Post by **Kazuaki Shimazaki** » 2003-01-08 08:13pm

I meant most of them seem to think it is merely Graham Kennedy's interpretation, so it is "latter," not "former." Sorry.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-01-08 08:17pm

Well I take the fact that Kennedy hasn't updated his page in over a year to be a sign of luck.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-08 08:26pm

Alyeska wrote:No, it is not. The ST:E pulls information directly from the episodes and movies. Any extra information from the scripts or ideas not shown in the movies or episodes are added in italics. The ST:E is a canon information source because it gathers its information from canon.

I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. You're basically saying that if an idea is based on canon, then it is canon. Think about the ramifications of that reasoning.

Anywhere that the STE goes above and beyond the contents of the episode is "speculation", to use Ordover's term. Speculation is not evidence.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-01-08 08:29pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Alyeska wrote:No, it is not. The ST:E pulls information directly from the episodes and movies. Any extra information from the scripts or ideas not shown in the movies or episodes are added in italics. The ST:E is a canon information source because it gathers its information from canon.
I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. You're basically saying that if an idea is based on canon, then it is canon. Think about the ramifications of that reasoning.

Anywhere that the STE goes above and beyond the contents of the episode is "speculation", to use Ordover's term. Speculation is not evidence.

Speculation is placed in Italics and AFTER the ST:E entry. You can clearly see what is and what is not fact in the ST:E.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-08 08:37pm

Alyeska wrote:Speculation is placed in Italics and AFTER the ST:E entry. You can clearly see what is and what is not fact in the ST:E.

You can also see the original episode which it referenced, and if you can show that the ST:E entry goes beyond the data itself, then it is speculation. General Order 24 called for targeting of all major cities. We know this. It did not call for indiscriminate, evenly distributed area bombardment of the entire surface. Therefore, the ST:E's entry, which you say states that it would "devastate the entire surface", is either speculative or it is being misinterpreted (devastation meaning many things).

A BDZ is total fatality. Not one solitary survivor. There remains no evidence that General Order 24 comes remotely close to this.

Lord Poe · Post by **Lord Poe** » 2003-01-08 08:41pm

I'm glad everyone debunked the planet-killer, sonic weapon, GO 24, and uber antimatter crap. There is only one good instance of Kirk's Enterprise taking major hits, and its from "The Changeling". Spock says that Nomad hit them with the equivalent of 90 of their photon torpedoes.

But this really doesn't ring true. In "Balance of Terror", the Enterprise is kicked for a loop and left hanging askew in space from nuclear warheads detonated less than a km from the hull.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2003-01-08 08:55pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Alyeska wrote:Speculation is placed in Italics and AFTER the ST:E entry. You can clearly see what is and what is not fact in the ST:E.
You can also see the original episode which it referenced, and if you can show that the ST:E entry goes beyond the data itself, then it is speculation. General Order 24 called for targeting of all major cities. We know this. It did not call for indiscriminate, evenly distributed area bombardment of the entire surface. Therefore, the ST:E's entry, which you say states that it would "devastate the entire surface", is either speculative or it is being misinterpreted (devastation meaning many things).

A BDZ is total fatality. Not one solitary survivor. There remains no evidence that General Order 24 comes remotely close to this.

Well actually the entry just says devestate the surface. I suppose I was assuming it meant devestate the ENTIRE surface. None the less there is very little speculation in the ST:E and MOST of it is in italics. There is some speculation listed in the normal entry, but then that is expanded upon in an italics explination. An example would be the ST:E claim of the USS Endeavor having been in both major Borg attacks.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-01-08 08:57pm

Where does the quote for General Order 24 being cities only come from?

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2003-01-08 09:06pm

Didn't you read this thread? An earlier poster quoted Scotty's exact words from the episode.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-01-08 09:18pm

Habitation occurs outside cities, by saying every inhabitated area that means it kills every last man (within reason).

and as Kirk says "I gave my Chief Engineer the order to destroy the surface of a planet" now while that may not mean the entire surafce (despite what he says) it seems to agree that it won't be cities only.

Cities only is very small scale indeed while what is said is somewhat larger (although still not on the level of a BDZ).

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-08 09:24pm

And the city of Hiroshima was supposedly "destroyed" despite having a huge number of survivors. Hanging an entire argument on the use of the word "destroy" is pretty weak, and you know it.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-01-08 09:37pm

I agree but when people use terms like "lay waste to the entire surface of a world" or start talking about hundreds of millions of people being killed (which is was the what the exact same guy described his population as being), I'm inclined to believe the level of destruction is going to high.

I suppose you can revise it down if you have reasno to my saying Kirk was lying or that destroy simply means cause some damage on some of the surface but htat wouldn't be taking the high ends that justify the uber connie.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-08 09:41pm

OK, lets say we take BDZ level devestation as a General Order 24. This means it has half the firepower of an ISD (as it takes just shy of 2 hours to do it, and an ISD can do it in under 1). In the ESB novel, the Executor is said to be 5 times the strength of an ISD. So the connie is outgunned 10 to 1.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-08 09:41pm

Well, that's the funny thing about "high-end" calcs; do we consider them a generous but still meaningful estimate, or do we consider them "the most we can push the evidence to possibly mean, no matter how unreasonable?"

Because, as others have pointed out, this would imply that we should take Dodonna's quote and Solo's quote together to mean that 500 Imperial ships can unleash 1E38 J of firepower.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2003-01-08 09:47pm

Ender:Theres no amount of time given, the 2 hours was simply a count down.
Cult of the Connie puts the destroying as taking a very short time (single digit minutes at max) but theres very little support for that position.

Darth Wong:If general order 24 is taken in isolation then their assumptions are valid however when added to other evidence they can be resolved downwards it just depends whether there are more high ends of this nature than low ends to which way you resolve.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-01-08 11:32pm

Darth Wong wrote:Well, that's the funny thing about "high-end" calcs; do we consider them a generous but still meaningful estimate, or do we consider them "the most we can push the evidence to possibly mean, no matter how unreasonable?"

Because, as others have pointed out, this would imply that we should take Dodonna's quote and Solo's quote together to mean that 500 Imperial ships can unleash 1E38 J of firepower.

If you're trying to be unreasonable, you throw in the Death Star technical companion's quote(That an unshielded world hit by the beam would be vaporized) and assume 500 ships can unleash 1e42J in one second.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-08 11:38pm

SirNitram wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Well, that's the funny thing about "high-end" calcs; do we consider them a generous but still meaningful estimate, or do we consider them "the most we can push the evidence to possibly mean, no matter how unreasonable?"

Because, as others have pointed out, this would imply that we should take Dodonna's quote and Solo's quote together to mean that 500 Imperial ships can unleash 1E38 J of firepower.
If you're trying to be unreasonable, you throw in the Death Star technical companion's quote(That an unshielded world hit by the beam would be vaporized) and assume 500 ships can unleash 1e42J in one second.

Have you ever looked to see what the shield would be iof you go by that, and subtract Wong's number to see what the shields stopped?

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Uber Constituition vs SSD

Got my order mixed up...