Trollish Trekkies

[Darth Servo]

What exactly did Han say? Did he say half the fleet couldn't do it, 1000 ships couldn't do it, or half the fleet being 1000 ships couldn't do it? I don't recall him stating half the fleet and 1000 ships at the same time.

"The Empire Starfleet couldn't destroy the whole planet. It would take a thousand ships with more firepower than" <cut off>

[Alyeska]

I still get a regular stream of people who E-mail my Empire site feedback commenting that the Federation could easily build a Death Star if they wanted to. Some people simply have no sense of scale. Either that, or they've been lobotomized.

Do they just say they could build it easily, or do they say FAST and easy? I can see the Federation building something that size with planet busting capabilities, but I don't see it being built quickly or being equal to the DS1.

[SirNitram]

What exactly did Han say? Did he say half the fleet couldn't do it, 1000 ships couldn't do it, or half the fleet being 1000 ships couldn't do it? I don't recall him stating half the fleet and 1000 ships at the same time.

It can't be gone! It'd take a fleet of a thousand ships with more firepower... <Cut off>

I see. Han did not state how large the Empire was. All he implied was that a single gathering of 1000 Imperial ships in a single system was not likely. Guess Darkstar kinda missed that little fact.

Facts never stopped him, like with TDiC.

[Darth Servo]

I still get a regular stream of people who E-mail my Empire site feedback commenting that the Federation could easily build a Death Star if they wanted to. Some people simply have no sense of scale. Either that, or they've been lobotomized.

How many of them have received the dreaded Imperial Smackdown(tm)?

[Darth Wong]

I still get a regular stream of people who E-mail my Empire site feedback commenting that the Federation could easily build a Death Star if they wanted to. Some people simply have no sense of scale. Either that, or they've been lobotomized.

How many of them have received the dreaded Imperial Smackdown(tm)?

Honestly, people that stupid are not even worthy of an Imperial SmackDown(TM). They simply get ignored.

The DS1 has a volume equivalent to several hundred million Galaxy-class starships. If we decide to be generous and grant 64 MT photorps, one blast from a DS superlaser is, at an absolute minimum, equivalent to 900 trillion photon torpedoes. And you can multiply that by a million more if you want to duplicate the Alderaan blast.

But numbers like this require a certain level of knowledge. One must be able to perform simple geometric volume calculations, which are apparently beyond the average high school student nowadays. One must also be capable of reading my site before presuming to refute it, another skill which seems to be lacking in the people who send this type of feedback. The ability to comprehend a simple derivation of gravitational binding energy would be handy, but when people can't even conceptualize basic relationships of size and volume, one cannot seriously expect them to know physics or calculus.

[Admiral Johnason]

I would like to point out that the Federation does tend to lack a good commeend structure and good tactial officers. I mean come on. We are fighting over asteroids and and armor. When it gets to the nittie grittie like this, you know you've won. I personally think that we should let the trekkies finish themselves off. They would probably pit series vs. series and would cause an intelectual implosion. Then the senisible Trekkies and Trek/Warsies could actually have a fun time. you think that most of them would commit sucide if they missed an episode of Enterprise (which is good, but still lacking a good long term story line.)

[Lord Poe]

I to believe it is biased. I think that some of the information Saxton put in their came from "compromised" sources, but he honestly put in in there so I can't fault him. I also think its wrong information. But you know what? Its offical and as I said its got one hell of a foundation.

Hey Alyeska, why don't you quit beating around the goddamned bush? Why don't you define exactly what you mean by "compromised sources"?

I'm so fucking sick and tired of this bullshit "wink-wink nudge-nudge" reasoning for attempting to dismiss the ICS as flawed.

And YES I'm talking about you, and YES I'm talking about the majority of Trekkie denziens at sb.com.

[Lord Poe]

Some have recently been asking if Trekkies are getting dumber. Ths is an interesting question (perhaps caused by the fact that names like "James Grady Ward" and "Paul-Jacques" have never graced ths board).

However, I think that there is something to this idea; is the calibre of Trek debater generally dropping? Who are these people who think Darkstar makes sense, when even people who don't give a shit about this subject can see that he's off his rocker?

You know Mike, I've been thinking. I really should send Darkstar a
THANK YOU note. For years, I've gotten e-mails claiming that I've made up the Trekkie arguments on my website, intentionally showing Trekkies in a bad light.

Now Darkstar, like some demented Pied Piper, has led, by example, these idiotic Trektards out of the basements and into the light. People now see that yes, these chuckleheads really DO exist.

James Grady Ward. Holy mother of fuck what an idiot that prick was. Do you remember Daniel L. Taylor, Doug Fortunato, etc?

[The Yosemite Bear]

I never remember any positive contributions to ASVS from Scoot.

*My Car*/man that is one piece of shit, blue piece of shit

[Enlightenment]

When a debater's position becomes desperate, he has two choices:

1) Concede, or at least regroup and reposition elsewhere

2) Become a mindless troll

#2 is where the lunatics like Darkstar, WingZero, etc. come from.

Another way of looking at this is to say that only the mindless would attempt to debate in the first place. Anyone with half a brain who looks at the data objectively will come to the conclusion that the GE will win. Once exposed to the facts of the scope of the GE industrial base and logistics capabilitiesonly an absolute moron would argue that the UFP would have any chance whatsoever.

In the grand scheme of things minutae such as ICS firepower numbers don't matter. What matters is that the Galactic Empire is a K-2+ civilization with the better part of a galaxy's worth of resources at its disposal. The UFP in contrast is in the high K-1 region with at most 1/4 of a galaxy worth of resources and energy. Anyone with half a brain can see from this that the UFP simply doesn't have enough production capacity to compete even if ISDs were as vulnerable as redshirts.

The intelligent people don't argue for Trek because they realize that Trek has no case. With the the intelligent people either arguing for the GE or choosing to stay out of the argument only the idiots are left to argue the 'case' for Trek.

[Sothis]

Well, the situation is quite simple- Empire has the following: Planet-busting technology (Death Star, Eclipse, Galaxy Gun, World Devastators- all along at different times, but they had them).

Resources: Well, it has a galaxy's worth.

Ships: In the order of hundreds of thousands at least, probably millions.

Troops: Millions if not billions.

Propulsion: Can cross a galaxy in a few weeks.

You could remove the firepower advantage and place Imps and Feds on equal footing, Imps still win by overwhelming the Feds. You could grant the Imps only half the firepower of Federation ships, and Imps still win from having far more ships, far more resources.

So raw firepower almost doesn't matter here.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Not to mention, even without weapons (Beyond personal), there's still enough Frieght power, & manpower, to sieze all of the Fed Ship Yards, Starfleet HQ, and install a puppet government, before the Federation really knows that there is an invasion underway.

[Alyeska]

I to believe it is biased. I think that some of the information Saxton put in their came from "compromised" sources, but he honestly put in in there so I can't fault him. I also think its wrong information. But you know what? Its offical and as I said its got one hell of a foundation.

Hey Alyeska, why don't you quit beating around the goddamned bush? Why don't you define exactly what you mean by "compromised sources"?

I'm so fucking sick and tired of this bullshit "wink-wink nudge-nudge" reasoning for attempting to dismiss the ICS as flawed.

And YES I'm talking about you, and YES I'm talking about the majority of Trekkie denziens at sb.com.

Actually if I was dismissing it as a whole then I wouldn't accept it period. And I have no need to actually define the sources because all its going to do is piss people off and probably start a flame war. So you can sod off Poe.

[His Divine Shadow]

AOTC might be a 16-ton anvil, but ICS is a freaking 100 ton MBT.

It's not that big, I still remember the 50GT> calcs by DasBastard, prior to the ICS by quite some time.

Ofcourse them being accepted, meh.

[Shogoki]

And I have no need to actually define the sources because all its going to do is piss people off and probably start a flame war. So you can sod off Poe.

I usually stay away from all this on topic things, but come on, you are basically conceding there is nothing wrong with the sources, why are you bringing it up then? If you don't stand by the things you say people is bound to get pissed off wherer you present proof or not.

Since you are hereby conceding there is nothing wrong with the sources for the ICS, please refrain yourself from going around claming otherwise if you are not willing to present proof.

[Alyeska]

And I have no need to actually define the sources because all its going to do is piss people off and probably start a flame war. So you can sod off Poe.

I usually stay away from all this on topic things, but come on, you are basically conceding there is nothing wrong with the sources, why are you bringing it up then? If you don't stand by the things you say people is bound to get pissed off wherer you present proof or not.

Since you are hereby conceding there is nothing wrong with the sources for the ICS, please refrain yourself from going around claming otherwise if you are not willing to present proof.

On the contrary, I am stating that there are problems with the sourced used in ICS. However I don't feel the need to name them because the AOTC ICS is offical regardless of the sources that some of the information came from.

[His Divine Shadow]

But I feel a need for you to name them, in a new thread if so.

Pandoras box is opened

[Stravo]

Alyeska,

You can't just say, there's problems with the sources then go on to claim that you aren't going to name those problems because its official and you accept them. That's dishonest. You just smeared the ICS but in the way that you can claim "but I accept it."

You've been called on it you should respond. Otherwise I smell the return of an attitude that polluted yet another thread fairly recently - no?

[Ender]

AOTC might be a 16-ton anvil, but ICS is a freaking 100 ton MBT.

It's not that big, I still remember the 50GT> calcs by DasBastard, prior to the ICS by quite some time.

Ofcourse them being accepted, meh.

got a copy of those?

[His Divine Shadow]

Energy necessary to produce "smoking rubble"
Assuming modern urban civilian construction, at least 50psi overpressure is required for total demolition; also assuming no overlaps to keep the numbers down.

If we use the equation for pressure contours:

r = k * Y^0.33 (r = radius (km), k = pressure constant, Y = yield in kilotons)

and k ~ 2.2 * P^-0.7, where P = overpressure in psi

We get, for 50 psi k = 0.14

Therefore, r = 0.14 * Y^0.33

If we assume the absolute maximum number of shots (based on 60/s for 24 hours) is 5 million.

So the limiting yield is 5e6 * pi r^2 = 5e14 (area of an Earth-like planet)

Thus, r must be > 5.64 km. This means the minimum per shot yield must be Y = 70000 kT.

So, 5 million shots at 70 megatons each gives a nice round number of 1.4e24J!!!

The total energy for a 5 hour bombardment (max. 1 million shots - 12.6km radius - each shot must be > 600 megatons) is 2.4e24J.

The total energy of a 1 hour bombardment (200000 shots - 28.2km radius - 9 gigaton blasts) is 7.2e24 J.

Tada!

Energy required to evenly crater a planet's surface
A 10-megaton blast will produce a crater or r<400m (ref: Dictionary of Modern War).

Thus, 1 billion shots (I know, I know, 200X too many for a single day) are necessary for even cratering, resulting in an overall energy requirement of 4e25 J.

If we enforce the 5 million shot limit, each crater must have a radius of 9.6-km. Crater radius is proportional to the square root of yield, so each blast must be at least 5.7 gigatons!

Thus, we arrive at an absolute lower limit of 5e6 * 5.7* 4e18 = 1.1e26 J!!!

Energy requirements will be roughly proportional to the square of the planetary radius, so doing this to a Mars-sized planet would require at least 3e25J. Doing it to a moon-sized planetoid would require at least 8e24J.

Note also that cratering efficiency depends on atmospheric confinement of the blast, so planets without atmosphere will require MORE energy to crater than ones with an atmosphere.

....

Correction and Addendum to cratering calcs
Made a mistake... the necessary individual crater size is 5.64km... this brings the minimum per-shot yield to 2 gigatons, and the total energy to 5e25J.

The time scale will not alter the cratering numbers, because the individual crater radius will scale up with fewer shots, but per-shot yield will scale up with number of shots.

Note the yield requirements:

24-hour BDZ: 2 gigatons per shot average (includes LTLs)
10-hour BDZ: 5 gigatons per shot
5-hour BDZ: 10 gigatons per shot
1-hour BDZ: 50 gigatons per shot

This equals, in sustained firepower:

24 hours: 4.8e20 W - 480 million TW
10 hours: 1.2e21 W - 1.2 billion TW
5 hours: 2.3e21 W - 2.3 billion TW
1 hour: 1.2e22 W - 12 billion TW

Thus, through the combination of a number of very conservative estimates, declare an absolute lower limit sustained firepower capacity of 480 billion TW (120 GT/s) for an ISD, and that it can sustain this rate of fire for at least a full day.

If we assume that it can NOT sustain that firepower for a full day, the per-shot yield (and thus the time-averaged firepower) must be scaled upwards accordingly.

[Ender]

Thank you, this fits perfectly in line with what I posted earlier.

[The Dude]

Please note that the calcs HDS posted above assumed a firing rate of 60/s. If one assumes a more reasonable rate of 12/s (12 HTLs firing at 1/s), all per-shot yields must be multiplied by ~5. IOW, they justify HTL yields up to ~250GT.

The following was posted on ASVS in March 2002. These calcs imply inidvidual HTL yields of 3 GT to 1800 GT per shot.

Dankayo-style Atmospheric Blowoff

Assumptions:
Earth-sized planet
Earth-like atmosphere
100% efficiency
Atmosphere is accelerated precisely to escape velocity, no more

E = 3.3e26 J

Time averaged firepower:

5-hour BDZ: = 1.8e10 TW = 4500 GT/s
1-hour BDZ = 9.1e10 TW = 22 TT/s



Dankayo-style Cratering

Assumptions:
- 100% coverage (moon-style),
- zero overlap
- crater radius in rock of a 10MT ground blast is 400m (ref.
Dictionary of Modern War),
- crater radius scales with square root of weapon yield (in reality,
much closer to cube root]
- Earth-sized planet with no oceans or mountains.

E = 5e25 J

Time-avereaged firepower:

5-hour BDZ = 2.7 billion TW = 690 GT/s
1-hour BDZ = 13.9 billion TW = 3400 GT/s



Smoking Rubble Scenario

Assumptions:
- 100% city coverage of Earth-sized planet
- modern-day materials requiring 50psi overpressure for total
demolition (i.e no hardened structures, advanced materials)
- all blasts are optimal-altitude airbursts
- blast radius = 0.14*Y^0.33 (0.14 is the coefficient for 50psi)

E = 2.4e24J

5-hour BDZ = 130 million TW = 33GT/s
2-hour BDZ = 325 million TW = 170 GT/s
1-hour BDZ = 650 million TW = 340 GT/s


Destruction of Fisheries

Assumptions:
- 100% heat efficiency (i.e no heat absorbed by atmosphere, or carried
away by conduction or convection) and zero thermal gradient in
affected areas.
- Earth-sized planet with earth-like oceans
- Total fisheries destruction will involve heating the top 50m of the
planet's oceans by 50 Kelvin.

E = 4e24J

5-hour BDZ = 220 million TW = 55GT/s
2-hour BDZ = 550 million TW = 140 GT/s
1-hour BDZ = 1.1 trillion TW = 280 GT/

[Alyeska]

Alyeska,

You can't just say, there's problems with the sources then go on to claim that you aren't going to name those problems because its official and you accept them. That's dishonest. You just smeared the ICS but in the way that you can claim "but I accept it."

Yes, I have smeared ICS. I have never hidden my dislike of it nor my feelings of aspects of it.

Of the sources I have heard Saxton used in making the ICS, I feel that two of them were biassed. One unintentionally , the other being very intentional. That is as far as I am willing to go. The names I was given were told to me in secret and I am not going to violate the confidence on the issue.

You've been called on it you should respond. Otherwise I smell the return of an attitude that polluted yet another thread fairly recently - no?

I disagree on this being similar to the other thread. As for responding, the above is the best your going to get. Some times its better just to leave things be and not push them. I am willing to accept ICS, and that should be good enough. You might think my attitude sucks right now, and I have to agree to a point. But if I end up listing the names, it will get much worse. There is no point dragging this particular issue because all its going to do is hurt people and possibly even smear people. There is one difference between smearing a source, many people do it with Voyager all the time, so my dislike of ICS should not be different. There is a difference when you start smearing people.

[Admiral Johnason]

I am curious on how exactly these shots' megatonage is regulated. Do they contrlo the amount of energy going into the weapon or do the use some kind of dampining field? Also, how do they keep the circuts from overheating and the weapons from having heat damage? Finally, do they use a lot of projectile weapons in a BDZ, just energy weapons, or a mixture of both?

[Darth Fanboy]

The BDZ is done with the Turbolasers since the missles are not their heaviest weapons and it would be a waste., but the missles can deliver biological warheads if that is the effect the Imperial Commander so desires.