V-GER vs. the Death Star

[mauldooku]

Treknology at its finest. You can't believe how hard I laughed when this 'planet killer' may take houndreds of years to kill one measly planet


And, for the last time,

"STOP POKING ME!"

~Orc, Warcraft Series

[Keevan_Colton]

Treknology at its finest. You can't believe how hard I laughed when this 'planet killer' may take houndreds of years to kill one measly planet


And, for the last time,

"STOP POKING ME!"

~Orc, Warcraft Series

*poke*


C'mon you're practically begging for it by saying that....

[Darth Servo]

And, for the last time,

"STOP POKING ME!"

~Orc, Warcraft Series

Then get a post count over 50. You're not even half way there yet.

*poke*

[The Nomad]

Leap in logic. Different beam weapons on different ships have different colors but the same effect.

But do different beam weapons ( it's not even a beam ) on the same ship always have the same effects ? That's leap in logic too.

[Darth Servo]

But do different beam weapons ( it's not even a beam ) on the same ship always have the same effects ? That's leap in logic too.

But we've only seen ONE actual attack from V-Ger and it did the exact same thing to the Klingon ships as it did to the much larger Fed space station. In order to show that the yellow balls-o-death would have a different effect, you need EVIDENCE. Since we never actually saw them do their job, you have NO evidence.

[Vertigo1]

I believe that at the end of the movie, it unveiled its Doomsday weapon: a lot of glowing energy balls that would circulate around the planet and sterilize its surface (I think it would have taken about an hour, but it's been many years since I saw the film).

Mind you, since a single ISD can do the same thing, this is not exactly the sort of thing which will terrify the Death Star.

I watched the end of it this morning and it pretty much said that from their "equa-distant" positions that they could "devastate the surface of the planet". It was also said that they would hit in about 37 minutes due to their low decay rate of their orbits. They were fired as a way to get Kirk to "disclose the information" as to why V'Ger's creator had not responded. If V'Ger wanted to take out the Earth, it could have easily done so in minutes if we take the quote as what they would literally do to the surface.

I also took the liberty of doing a little pixel scaling, based on the tactical picture I posted earlier. I'll post them when I get the opportunity.

[Vertigo1]

I don't recall this. The balls divided and were to strike Earth's surface in a single volley. The actual destruction would have been very short, it took only time to deploy them.

Why would the time be so short? When V-ger digitized the Klingon ships and the Fed Space station, it tood several seconds and thats just a few hundred meters. How much longer would this effect take to cover the surface of the earth?

Good point. Let's say it takes 10 seconds to "digitize" a GCS. That would be a rate of around 650,000 cubic metres per second (assuming a GCS volume is 6.5E6 m^3). Now, let's extrapolate that to digitizing the Earth's 510 million square km surface area to a depth of 10 metres (thus ignoring surface structures taller than 10 metres or anything buried deeper than 10 metres). At that rate, it would take roughly ... two hundred and fifty years.

So, even if it fires off a hundred of these things and each one is a thousand times more powerful than the one which struck the Klingon ship, we're still looking at a timeframe of more than 20 hours.

I think this thing would have a helluva time dealing with an ISD, never mind the Death Star.

There's just one problem Mike. The satelite itself was launched over three hundred years before the events seen in TMP. It had already "digitized" whole planets, stars, and galaxies in this timespan in its quest for gathering information. Perhaps it used some other method? If so, wouldn't it make sense that it use this method on something the size of the Death Star?

[Vertigo1]

One last thing. WOULD the Death Star even be able to scan inside V'Ger? Keep in mind that I'm not saying that the Death Star's sensors are inferior to that of the Enterprise's, but all scans by Enterprise were reflected back. All comm traffic was jammed when they went inside (until they were in orbit of Earth).

As for turbolasers, would they have any effect? From the beginning of the film, the klingons fired their torpedoes into the cloud. Judging from what was shown on the klingon's tactical screen, the torpedoes screamed to a halt and just vanished. Could this be some kind of defense mechanism, and would it have the same effect on turbolasers?

[Darth Wong]

There's just one problem Mike. The satelite itself was launched over three hundred years before the events seen in TMP. It had already "digitized" whole planets, stars, and galaxies in this timespan in its quest for gathering information. Perhaps it used some other method? If so, wouldn't it make sense that it use this method on something the size of the Death Star?

Or perhaps you're just making an insane leap in logic from "picture of planet in its archives" to "must have annihilated an entire planet". This has been pointed out many times in this thread, and no one has addressed it except to ignore it and repeat their illogical claim that a picture = proof of annihilation of the object represented.

[Vertigo1]

Or perhaps you're just making an insane leap in logic from "picture of planet in its archives" to "must have annihilated an entire planet". This has been pointed out many times in this thread, and no one has addressed it except to ignore it and repeat their illogical claim that a picture = proof of annihilation of the object represented.

Hey, I'm just taking it as I see it. There is no proof that they weren't annihilated in the same manner, yet no proof that they were so where does that leave us OTHER than to make leaps of logic?

[Darth Wong]

Or perhaps you're just making an insane leap in logic from "picture of planet in its archives" to "must have annihilated an entire planet". This has been pointed out many times in this thread, and no one has addressed it except to ignore it and repeat their illogical claim that a picture = proof of annihilation of the object represented.

Hey, I'm just taking it as I see it. There is no proof that they weren't annihilated in the same manner, yet no proof that they were so where does that leave us OTHER than to make leaps of logic?

ROTFLMAO!!! "There is no proof that they weren't annihilated"; how about conservation of mass/energy, dumb-ass? Where did the mass/energy go? Into V'ger? Do you realize the gravity well this thing should have been generating if it had the mass/energy of whole fucking galaxies in it? It should have been a black hole, for fuck's sake. And the best you can do is say that there's a picture of a galaxy and we can't prove this was NOT proof of total annihilation?

You can't assume a capability without evidence, and you have no evidence. All you have is a leap in logic and your moronic insistence that it stands even if it's illogical, unless someone can prove the negative.

[DocHorror]

Some facts about V-Ger:

It was 78km long.
It displacement was estimated as being 6 million times that of the Enterprise.
The cloud it projects was 82 (IIRC) AU in diameter, the novel states it could hold a star system within it.
V-Gers power levels are said to be 12 order (again the novel states that 12 order power is enough to stop the sun from rotating)

Im not arguing either way, just adding some facts...

[Darth Servo]

I watched the end of it this morning and it pretty much said that from their "equa-distant" positions that they could "devastate the surface of the planet". It was also said that they would hit in about 37 minutes due to their low decay rate of their orbits. They were fired as a way to get Kirk to "disclose the information" as to why V'Ger's creator had not responded. If V'Ger wanted to take out the Earth, it could have easily done so in minutes if we take the quote as what they would literally do to the surface.

So from a bunch of ambiguous quotes you draw the conclusion that V-ger would "instantly" sterilize the entire planet? The danger couldn't possibly be due to the possibility of the Feds lacking the ability to stop the reaction once it started and most people wouldn't be able to get off the planet? Besides, the Feds are so squeamish that even the threat a few peorple being killed is enough to force their hand.

They say the balls o'death will "devastate the planet" but no mention of how long it will take so you assume it will be instantly?

They say "equal-distant" and this translates to "no time for the reaction"? How?

They NEVER say how long it will take so you assume it all means "instantly"? Why?

I also took the liberty of doing a little pixel scaling, based on the tactical picture I posted earlier. I'll post them when I get the opportunity.

Keep in mind that tactical displays often show things out of scale for the benefit of the viewer. Therefore, any scaling from it isn't all that reliable. Is there a pic of the actual balls themselves around the Earth?

One last thing. WOULD the Death Star even be able to scan inside V'Ger?

Are you talking about the cloud or the ship itself? It doesn't NEED to scan inside the ship to know where to shoot. This is a fight, not your typical Federation"Lets try and talk the threatening alien out of killing us" crap.

Keep in mind that I'm not saying that the Death Star's sensors are inferior to that of the Enterprise's, but all scans by Enterprise were reflected back. All comm traffic was jammed when they went inside (until they were in orbit of Earth).

The sensors were disrupted only when the cloud was around the ship. Once the cloud was gone, their sensors worked just fine. If the could is there, most competant military officers would assueme the ship is in the center of the cloud and know where to shoot.

As for turbolasers, would they have any effect? From the beginning of the film, the klingons fired their torpedoes into the cloud. Judging from what was shown on the klingon's tactical screen, the torpedoes screamed to a halt and just vanished. Could this be some kind of defense mechanism, and would it have the same effect on turbolasers?

Even if it was some kine of defensive mechanism, just because rendered torps useless, this would make the thing immune to any and all weapons, regardless of firepower? Get real. Stop extrapolationg things to infinity.

[Darth Servo]

V-Gers power levels are said to be 12 order

12 order what? Without units, the quote is meaningless.

[Vertigo1]

Some facts about V-Ger:

It was 78km long.
It displacement was estimated as being 6 million times that of the Enterprise.
The cloud it projects was 82 (IIRC) AU in diameter, the novel states it could hold a star system within it.
V-Gers power levels are said to be 12 order (again the novel states that 12 order power is enough to stop the sun from rotating)

Im not arguing either way, just adding some facts...

Nitpick: The cloud part was 2AU in diameter.

[Darth Wong]

Vertigo, if you honestly can't see how you've ass-raped logic in your arguments, you're beyond hope. Leaping in logic from a picture of a planet to the conclusion that it consumed its entire mass/energy, claiming that this conclusion is valid as long as it cannot be DISPROVEN, as if extraordinary claims not only don't require extraordinary evidence but must actually be disproven, etc.

[Darth Servo]

Nitpick: The cloud part was 2AU in diameter.

So what is the 82 AU that everyone keeps bringing up?

[Akm72]

The cloud was stated as 82 AU in the original film and probably the book - but the latest directors' edition changed that to a 'mere' 2 AU.

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Actually, concidering the original TMP was GR's, and this one isn't, wouldn't 82 AU be correct?

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Some facts about V-Ger:

It was 78km long.
It displacement was estimated as being 6 million times that of the Enterprise.

Definately didn't "digitize" a galaxy.

The cloud it projects was 82 (IIRC) AU in diameter, the novel states it could hold a star system within it.

V-Gers power levels are said to be 12 order (again the novel states that 12 order power is enough to stop the sun from rotating)

Im not arguing either way, just adding some facts...

That is not a fact. The novel is noncanon.

[Akm72]

The original release was rushed through the editing process, and the director was never really happy with it. With the latest version he's redone it to his satisfaction. As it is as much his film as GRs, he has every right to change that sort of detail.

[Darth Wong]

I think it's important to remember that a film's list of "creators" is much longer than that of a novel. Too many people think of films and TV shows as if they were novels. That's why they often do things like dismissing visuals as "FX gaffes"; they assume that the FX person has no right to have any input, so anything he does which contradicts the fan's personal interpretation of the script is garbage.

I don't think that solution works; if we use it, then Indiana Jones never shot the Arab swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark (that wasn't in the script; it was Harrison Ford's idea and the director went along with it).

[Singular Quartet]

Some facts about V-Ger:

It was 78km long.
It displacement was estimated as being 6 million times that of the Enterprise.

Definately didn't "digitize" a galaxy.

The cloud it projects was 82 (IIRC) AU in diameter, the novel states it could hold a star system within it.

V-Gers power levels are said to be 12 order (again the novel states that 12 order power is enough to stop the sun from rotating)

Im not arguing either way, just adding some facts...

That is not a fact. The novel is noncanon.

Roddenbury wrote the novel. How is it non-canon?

Also, I would like to mention the fact that there are a large number of Disparities between TOS and the rest of the series. I don't know if they carried over to the movies or not, but mostly it has to do with speed and weapons. E1701 on SB.com put this forward, and had good backing for it. I'll check it out and see if I can find it, but disregard me until I do.

[Connor MacLeod]

I don't mean to nitpick, but has anyone actually gone to the time to look up the definition of "digitize?"

http://www.britannica.com/dictionary?bo ... a=digitize

Main Entry: dig·i·tize
Pronunciation: 'di-j&-"tIz
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -tized; -tiz·ing
Date: 1953
: to convert (as data or an image) to digital form

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/ ... h=digitize

dig·i·tize [ díjji tz ] (past dig·i·tized, past participle dig·i·tized, present participle dig·i·tiz·ing, 3rd person present singular dig·i·tiz·es)
transitive verb

convert to digital form: to convert an image, graph, or other data into digital form for processing on a computer

I could be wrong, but neither of those definitions seem to involve converting matter into energy and "digitizing" it, just the data they obtain about a planet (such as images).

[Ted C]

Hey, I'm just taking it as I see it. There is no proof that they weren't annihilated in the same manner, yet no proof that they were so where does that leave us OTHER than to make leaps of logic?

I don't recall seeing images of the "digitized" Klingon starships in V'Ger's archive. Why then should I associate V'Ger's weaponry with its records?