Hyperbole it is.Picard wrote:No, I saw enough to understand that you do not understand basics. And about photon torpedoes, these are not 250 megatons - but rather several gigatons.
In 'A Taste of Armageddon', for example, Kirk is captured whilst on the surface of the planet Eminiar VII. Eminiar is fighting a computer-simulated war with its neighbouring planet, Vendikar. When the computers register a person as a casualty they are expected to report to one of numerous disintegration chambers and immolate themselves. Determined to stop the war, Kirk manages to get a message to Scotty in which he orders him to implement General Order 24. Scotty issues the following ultimatum to the Eminian civilisation :
Scotty : 'All cities and installations on Eminiar VII have been located, identified and fed into our fire control system. In one hour forty five minutes the entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed.'
This is not the only time the Enterprise is claimed to be capable of this level of devastation. In 'Bread and Circuses', Kirk talks to the leader of a world whose civilisation has paralleled that of Earth, but with one important difference : on this world, the Roman Empire never fell. The leader, Marcus, captured a Federation ship's crew some six years earlier and convinced its commanding officer, Captain R.M. Merrick, to work with him. In a conversation with Kirk, Marcus says :
Marcus : 'From what I understand, your vessel could lay waste to the entire surface of the world.'
Marcus is not himself an expert in Starship capabilities of course, but he has had a ship's captain as his advisor for some six years and so is certain to have a good general idea of the capabilities of the ship.
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I see just wild assumptions. If you have something that is data that can be verified, that does help.At the height of the cold war the nuclear powers of the Earth held arsenals with a total yield well into the thousands of megatons. If the Enterprise at least matches this total with only two hundred or so warheads, then each weapon would have a yield well in excess of ten megatons. Weapons with this kind of yield are well within the capabilities of present day science - indeed, bombs with yields of some 50 megatons were successfully tested several decades ago. Producing such energy with a matter/antimatter charge should be relatively straightforward for 23rd century technology. With the recent advent of photons in the tens of megatons range on Enterprise, set a century before Kirk's time, it seems certain that the weapons in use during the original series were at least this powerful. See later on for more details of the Enterprise weapons.
At this point, I guess I should take Vader's taunt of destroying a planet as fact. Good to know.It's worth repeating that this represents virtually the minimum yield that photon torpedoes could have and still fit in with the above episode statements. Higher yields are perfectly possible and indeed quite likely if we are to take phrases such as 'lay waste to the surface of the world' at face value. At least one original series episode points to an even greater level of destruction than this; in 'Whom Gods Destroy', Captain Kirk is trapped in a Federation lunatic asylum which has been taken over by one of its inmates, Garth. The whole planet is covered by a planetary shield, and in the following dialogue the crew consider trying to blast through it :
Scotty : 'Mister Sulu. What do your sensors show?'
Sulu : 'We can't beam anybody down sir. The forcefield on the planet is in full operation and all forms of transport into the asylum dome are blocked off. '
Scotty : 'Aye... we could blast our way through the field but only at the risk of destroying the Captain, Mister Spock and any other living thing on Elba II.'
McCoy : 'How can we be powerful enough to wipe out a planet and still be so helpless!'
Somewhat remarkably, this indicates that the surface of the planet would be totally devastated even by the collateral damage of blasting through the planetary shields! This would would presumably be only a small portion of the total attack, indicating a total firepower much greater than a mere few thousand megatons - perhaps even several orders of magnitude greater.
So, anything? At all? I mean sure, five, even six years ago this would've been amusing. Now? It's a zombie trying to lurch forward.