Uber-powered antimatter?

[Eternal_Freedom]

It has occurred to me that this entire debate is utterly pointless (within the ST vs SW context that is, not in general). We are asked to accept from Treknobabble and Watchman that the Federation and other AQ powers have access to massively powerful weapons that could potentially pose a threat to Imperial vessels.

However, if this theory is correct, then the AQ powers have only deployed these weapons twice, one of which was a short-notice mashup to deal with one specific threat. They are not deployed against the many severe and/ore existential threats the federation et al face. No such weapons are used against the Doomsday Machine, or against V'Ger, or against the Borg (on the two occasions they directly assault Earth) despite the two attacks coming incredibly close to succeeding. They are not used against the Dominion fleets, even when high-ranking Admirals state that if the reinforcements arrive, they're finished. They aren't used against Species 8472, which wanted to purge all other life from the galaxy. They aren't even used for demolitions of large objects (they had to invent another high-yield weapon, Tricobalt devices, to destroy the Caretaker's Array).

So, the Federation won't use it's very powerful weapons against threats that variously want to assimilate all life, purge all life by force, convert all life into energy patterns, or shatter every planet in it's path. It won't even use them to prevent generations of oppression and occupation by the Dominion.

So why would they use them on the Empire? Since in the vast majority of cases the Empire merely occupies the Federation but in a less-brutal fashion than the Dominion planned (no annihilating Earth's population, for instance). In those terms, the Empire is actually a far less serious threat than things that appear for one episode, so why would Starfleet and it's allies be willing to break out the mega-antimatter weapons for this foe?

This thread is in the »Star Trek« section and not in the »Star Wars vs Star Trek«.

As fas as I am aware, nobody in this thread has talked about »Star Wars vs Star Trek«.

Is a debate that is not a »Star Wars vs Star Trek« debate pointless?

From Treknobabble's second post: "Very useful for demolishing a planet's surface... or taking down the shields of an turbocharged mile-long wedge of death."

A glib remark to be certain. But considering that his OP asks what the Obsession incident means for photon torpedo yields and warp core power outputs. Such things are almost only useful for vs debates.

On another note: I agree that the Federation would probably not use certain weapons we know they could use against the Empire.

But ...

... concerning the Doomsday Machine:
It could deactivate anti-matter => this event has no relevance in this thread

This one I will concede.

... concerning the Borg:
How do you know what was shot on them off-screen?
How do you know that planetary-attack-weapons could be used against ships?
How do you know that the three weapons shot from the Mars at the Borg weren't such weapons?

There is no mention of anyone using planetary-assault weapons off-screen. Indeed, there is a scene with Riker, SHelby, Data and La Forge talking about how Starfleet has been working for the last year to build anti-Borg weapons, but they aren't ready. No mention made of super-torpedoes. As for planetary-attack weapons used against ships, the supposed weapons seen in TDiC are apparently fired from standard torpedo tubes and beam mounts. The super-beams at the very least should be able to be used. The super-torps, even if you can't hit them directly (though mising such a large target is not a good sign for the Federation's weapons systems) program them for proximity detonations, like WW2 radar-fused flak shells.

Note that this proximity-detonation idea also applies to Species 8472.

... concerning the Dominion:
Using such weapons against the Dominion would result in them using such weapons against the Federation/Klingons/Romulans
This is a good reason to not use them. The Domino was not - as far as the Federation/Klingons/Romulans knew - bend to exterminate the Federation/Klingon/Romulan population.
If the Federation/Klingon/Romulan military can not hold the Dominion military off, it may be considered better for the population to life under a new management than to be exterminated.

This is a possibility. But if the Federation believed that, then they would have accepted Bashir's recommendation to surrender peacefully rather than suffer the expected 900 billion casualties. They already knew that things were bad, and that ift he reinforcements arrived they would not be able to survive. And yet they go for a final throw of the dice rather than submit. And again, despite the ideal conditions for using such weapons against the Dominion fleet, it is not done or even considered.

For the same reason the Federation would probably not use certain weapons we know they could use against the Empire.

Well then, if they have such monster weapons but aren't ever willing to use them, then they're irrelevant aren't they? It goes in the list of yet another thing the Federation could use again but doesn't, like the endless tech-of-the-week. In fact, it would be comparable to bringing up the idea of the Empire rebuilding a Sun Crusher for a vs. debate (or even a SW only debate), yes it's something they could do, but they won't, so bringing it up is a red herring.

Incidentaly, I find it vaguely amusing that this started as "the Federation has some super-brand antimatter" and has become "the Federation et al has uber-weapons but they never use them" ignoring the fact that the uber-weapons are fuelled by the uber-antimatter that should have so many other uses that it should be everywhere.

For instance, if this super-antimatter exists, it would logically be used for fuel (or they'd be total fucking idiots, and we'd have two types of antimatter present, one far more powerful than the other, which seems absurd at best). If the uber-antimatter is used as fuel, then starships should never have to re-fuel. And before you say that maybe the ships just sue that absurd amount of power, if that were true having fusion reactors on hand as a back-up would be pointless, as instead of being merely a hundred times less powerful, it would be millions of times less and the fusion reactors couldn't power anything.

[Batman]

I'm not so sure about the Doomsday Machine. The uber antimatter used in 'Obsession' clearly wasn't ordinary antimatter, so how do we know the Machine's 'antimatter deactivation' would have affected it? Sure 'Doomsday Machine' was before 'Obsession', but nobody in the latter acted like the uber antimatter was a recent discovery. And yet nobody even went 'damn, if only we had any of this uber antimatter to throw at it.' Remember the thing was killed by a measly 97MT impulse engine overload going off inside it.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Good point, that's something I hadn't considered.

[Lord Revan]

also aren't Impulse Engines fusion devices seperate from the main warpcore?

[Eternal_Freedom]

also aren't Impulse Engines fusion devices seperate from the main warpcore?

That's what I meant when I referred to "having fusion reactors as a backup." Which would be utterly pointless if the warp core uses this uber-antimatter as fuel, since there isn't a hope in hell the reactors could possibly come within a fraction of a percent of the super-antimatter's output without being the size of, I dunno, Los Angeles.

[Lord Revan]

also aren't Impulse Engines fusion devices seperate from the main warpcore?

That's what I meant when I referred to "having fusion reactors as a backup." Which would be utterly pointless if the warp core uses this uber-antimatter as fuel, since there isn't a hope in hell the reactors could possibly come within a fraction of a percent of the super-antimatter's output without being the size of, I dunno, Los Angeles.

my bad, though in my defense I was replying to Batman.

[WATCH-MAN]

From Treknobabble's second post: "Very useful for demolishing a planet's surface... or taking down the shields of an turbocharged mile-long wedge of death."

A glib remark to be certain. But considering that his OP asks what the Obsession incident means for photon torpedo yields and warp core power outputs. Such things are almost only useful for vs debates.

acknowledged

There is no mention of anyone using planetary-assault weapons off-screen.

acknowledged

Indeed, there is a scene with Riker, SHelby, Data and La Forge talking about how Starfleet has been working for the last year to build anti-Borg weapons, but they aren't ready.

acknowledged

No mention made of super-torpedoes.

From scene 6 of the TNG episode Best of both worlds:

• • • • • • HANSON:
        Commander Shelby took over Borg tactical analysis six months ago. I've learned to give her a wide latitude when I want to get things done... That's how I intend to operate here.
        
        • • SHELBY:
        My priority has been to develop some kind, any kind of defense strategy...
        
        • • RIKER:
        Obviously nothing we have now can stop them.
        
        • • SHELBY:
        We've been designing new weapons... but they're still on the drawing board.

From scene 17 of the TNG episode Best of both worlds:

• • • • • • GEORDI:
        From what I've seen, I can't believe any of your new weapons systems can be ready in less than eighteen months, Commander.
        
        • • SHELBY:
        We've been projecting twenty-four.
        
        • • RIKER:
        Is there anything here we can try to adapt to our current defense systems... ?
        
        • • GEORDI:
        We'll have to look through the specs again.
        
        • • • • [...]
        • • SHELBY:
        I think we should look at modifying the plasma phaser design...

They did not mention on what weapons they are working at all - with the exception of the plasma phaser design that's the only weapon that may be possible to integrate quickly in their current defense systems.

Insofar that they did not mentioned super-torpedoes doesn't say anything.

On the other side it shows that more powerful weapons were in the pipeline. Insofar it can not be a surprise when later more powerful weapons are used. It is not a contradiction.

As for planetary-attack weapons used against ships, the supposed weapons seen in TDiC are apparently fired from standard torpedo tubes and beam mounts.

You did see the torpedo tubes?

Because I did not.

I can not say that the torpedo tubes of the ships of the Cardassian/Romulan attack fleet were standard torpedo tubes.

That may have to do something with my inability to remember any other instances in this era in which Cardassian war ships or Romulan war ships (especially the D'deridex class) have fired torpedoes at all.

The thing I know is that this were illegal build ships for an illegal attack on a planet. It's only to assume that these ships were armed with weapons which enable them to achieve their objective - maybe even forbidden weapons systems regular ships of the fleet of their governments are not armed with.

The super-beams at the very least should be able to be used.

Maybe the beam is only so effective against unprotected matter and can easily be blocked or diverted by shields.

Or it does consume so much power that other defense systems are suffering.

Good in a surprise attack on a planet when no return fire is expected - bad in a ship to ship or fleets engagement when you need your shields.

The super-torps, even if you can't hit them directly (though mising such a large target is not a good sign for the Federation's weapons systems) program them for proximity detonations, like WW2 radar-fused flak shells.

Maybe it's like trying to shoot of an aircraft with an ICBM instead of an air to air missile?

The proximity detonation may destroy the aircraft - but not only the aircraft.

This is a possibility. But if the Federation believed that, then they would have accepted Bashir's recommendation to surrender peacefully rather than suffer the expected 900 billion casualties.

The problem is that Sisko did not believe his calculations.

• • • • • • SISKO:
        I don't accept it. Your entire argument is based on a series of statistical probabilities and assumptions.
        
        [...]
        
        • • SISKO:
        All right, doctor. You've made your recommendation. I'll pass it on to Starfleet Command.
        
        • • BASHIR:
        Sir, if you don't add your voice to this, they'll reject it out of hand.
        
        • • SISKO:
        I'm counting on it.

and as Bashir learned later, Sisko was right to not trust statistical probabilities and assumptions:

• • • • • • BASHIR:
        Maybe our projections were wrong.
        
        • • JACK:
        How can you say that? We factored in every variable, every contingency -the equations don't lie! (pointing at Sarina) You. You ruined everything.
        
        • • BASHIR:
        What do you make of that, Jack? Why didn't you anticipate it -why didn't you factor her into your equations? You thought you knew everything, but you didn't even know what was going to happen in this room. One person derailed your plans. One person changed the course of history. I don't know about you, but that gives me hope. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, things don't have to turn out the way we thought.

They already knew that things were bad, and that ift he reinforcements arrived they would not be able to survive. And yet they go for a final throw of the dice rather than submit. And again, despite the ideal conditions for using such weapons against the Dominion fleet, it is not done or even considered.

They still had hope.

Well then, if they have such monster weapons but aren't ever willing to use them, then they're irrelevant aren't they? It goes in the list of yet another thing the Federation could use again but doesn't, like the endless tech-of-the-week.

That's what I said already.

In fact, it would be comparable to bringing up the idea of the Empire rebuilding a Sun Crusher for a vs. debate (or even a SW only debate), yes it's something they could do, but they won't, so bringing it up is a red herring.

I haven't brought up this idea.

Incidentaly, I find it vaguely amusing that this started as "the Federation has some super-brand antimatter" and has become "the Federation et al has uber-weapons but they never use them" ignoring the fact that the uber-weapons are fuelled by the uber-antimatter that should have so many other uses that it should be everywhere.

For instance, if this super-antimatter exists, it would logically be used for fuel (or they'd be total fucking idiots, and we'd have two types of antimatter present, one far more powerful than the other, which seems absurd at best). If the uber-antimatter is used as fuel, then starships should never have to re-fuel. And before you say that maybe the ships just sue that absurd amount of power, if that were true having fusion reactors on hand as a back-up would be pointless, as instead of being merely a hundred times less powerful, it would be millions of times less and the fusion reactors couldn't power anything.

Creating the super-antimatter could be far more expensive than creating normal antimatter. It may be possible but not expedient using it as fuel. Furthermore the systems the Federation can build can only get along with so much energy. With the warp drive it is not only a question how much energy you can put into it but also how much energy it can tolerate without burning through. To have fusion reactor as a backup makes sense - even if you would use super-anitmatter. Most systems on board of a starship - especially life-support - simply do not need so much energy.

[DaveJB]

Okay, something screwy is going on here. The reply to my last post is so similar to Darkstar's posting style it's almost uncanny. In any event, I'm just going to reply to the pertinent points, and ignore the attempts to pad out the post length and repetitions of the same few arguments:

The dialogue says that thirty percent of the crust was destroyed. That's a proof.

Maybe it is not the strongest and most reliable evidence - as witness statements are never - but nevertheless it is an admissible evidence.

Proof and evidence are not the same thing. No one line of dialogue can act as absolute proof for anything. It can only be looked at as evidence, which must be supported by additional evidence to form a conclusion.

This evidence is even more convincing as nobody on the bridge has questioned this statement. If it were totally absurd, someone would have noticed the impossibility of what was stated and would have said something. Insofar the other witnesses regarded what was stated as laying in the realm of possibility.

Actually, the officer who made that statement said that 30% of the crust had been destroyed, and then immediately reported no change in the Founder lifesigns. Tain likely realized straight away that regardless of whether she meant "crust" or "surface," there was no way their bombardment could have failed to kill any of the Founders, and somehow I doubt that a pissing match over the officer's mistaken choice of words was his main priority.

Besides, how do you explain the fact that they expected to take roughly twenty minutes of sustained bombardment to destroy 30% of the crust, but the officer's dialogue suggests that it took them one bombardment and just ten seconds? Or are you suggesting that the Romulans frequently screw up their firepower estimates by a factor of 120, and just shrug it off as being no big deal?

Please prove that it is wrong.

Prove that not thirty percent of the crust was destroyed.

I think you will have a hard time trying it because we do not see the crust as it was covered by the cloud layer.

Actually, the onus is on you to provide additional evidence that supports the officer's claim that 30% of the crust was destroyed.

But as it happens, I can provide proof that we did not see 30% of the crust being destroyed, namely the fact that we didn't see any signs of significant disruption. The thickness of the cloud layer doesn't even come into it; if the torpedoes exploded near the surface they should have blasted molten debris far above the cloud layer, into low orbit. If they exploded far under the surface (nearer the mantle layer), then we should have witnessed the outer crust layers collapsing, which would have produced a huge cloud of dust and molten debris that, again, would have travelled well above the clouds.

By the way, you're still sticking with the same damn circular logic fallacy. Why didn't we see any signs of disruption to the surface? Because the cloud layer was too thick. How do we know the cloud layer was too thick? Because we didn't see any signs of disruption to the surface. Prove that the cloud layer could have obscured the destruction of 30% of the crust. Also, I like the way you're treating the clouds as some unfalsifiable magic bullet that just let you pull whatever claim you want out of your backside, while seeing no need to explain how they actually support your conclusions.

How often have you seen the Cardassians or the Romulans trying to destroy a planet?
In which event you have seen do you think they should have used such weapons?

I can't speak so much for the Romulans (the only planet-killing weapon we ever saw from them was the Thaleron beam, a completely different type of weapon to your mooted mega torpedoes), but as far as the Cardassians are concerned, we've seen their bigass weapon of choice - the Dreadnought from the Voyager episode of the same name, which was about half the size of Voyager itself, and indicated to have the power of 400 photon torpedoes, but only implied to be capable of destroying a small continent. Why would the Cardassians go to all the trouble of inventing such a complicated weapon when it would be thousands of times less powerful than one of these planet-buster torpedoes you claim they have?

Furthermore, since the Cardassians were annexed by the Dominion it stands to reason that the Dominion, even if they hadn't somehow invented these planet-busters independently, would have access to the Cardassian version. In that case, when the Female Changeling ordered that the population of Cardassia Prime be exterminated, why wouldn't they have just blasted the planet with a few mega torpedoes and high-tailed it out of there before the Federation-Klingon-Romulan-Cardassian fleet arrived? Clearly by that point they were beyond caring about war crimes.

Let me be sure I do understand your argument: Not the cloud layer obscured the detonations of the weapons but the torpedoes were so weak that we couldn't see their unobscured but too small detonations from orbit.

Is that your argument?

Actually, no, that's the argument that your "we can't see the weapon detonations because of the cloud cover" points to. I actually don't think that the Cardassian and Romulan weapons are so pathetically weak, but in the absence of any proof that the clouds were super-dense, it's the conclusion that your own argument actually indicates.

Do you really think that this argumentation will get you any credibility?

This is neither a political debate nor a reality TV show. "Credibility" doesn't come into it.

I mean I try to reconcile all the facts in theory A. You have issues with my theory - only because you do not like the conclusion - but that does not makes your theory B correct.

Quite apart from the fact that you do not even present a theory B.

Your only argument is that we did not see what you expected to see although what happened was obscured by a cloud layer and couldn't be seen.

Actually, I did present a theory - the fleet destroyed (or at least devastated) 30% of the planet's surface, something established as feasible by the capabilities of Star Trek weapons that were established elsewhere, and the officer mistakenly said "crust" instead of "surface."

The problem here is that your approach is completely arse-backwards. Instead of looking at all the evidence presented by the episode and coming to the most reasonable assumption, you've started out with a single line of dialogue, assumed that it cannot possibly be mistaken, and tried to rationalize and make excuses for how everything else in Star Trek is actually consistent with it.

Shockwaves

Not possible. They should be visibly heating up the atmosphere (for reference, they're moving approximately 12x the speed of a re-entering spacecraft), and they aren't.

You brought it up.

Actually, you were the one who posited that the Enterprise had a ludicrously low torpedo count. If you knew full well you couldn't prove that, you shouldn't have brought it up.

Can you prove that this was possible, that the Crazy Horse had enough torpedoes or that there was enough time to transfer enough torpedoes to the Crazy Horse before that ship departed to rendezvous with the Enterprise or that there was enough time to transfer any torpedoes to the Enterprise?

I don't have to prove shit. You haven't proven that the Enterprise's torpedo count was depleted in any way.

Do you know that Pressman didn't choose the Enterprise because Riker - who knew what was on the Pegasus - was onboard of the Enterprise.

Oh, yes. Choose a ship that might go into combat, has next to no torpedoes left, has families on-board that Picard will likely be factoring into any danger assessment that he makes, and whose crew Riker may very possibly be more loyal to than Pressman himself. Still, that theory would explain why the Pegasus crew mutinied on Pressman; it would mean the guy's obviously a complete moron.

We do not know the composition of the asteroid in the TNG epsiode Pegasus and can not simply assume - as you have done - that it is not significantly different than the nickel-iron composition of most asteroids.

That's why we can not know what is necessary to destroy that asteroid.

And that is the reason why we can not derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus concerning the yield of the photon torpedoes the Enterprise was armed with then.

[...]

Only if you know how tough the asteroid is and know how many photon torpedoes Enterprise was armed with can you calculate anything meaningful.

But as we do know neither, we can not derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus concerning the yield of the photon torpedoes the Enterprise was armed with then.

Yet again with the appeal to ignorance. Unless you have some reason why we should regard the asteroid as being vastly tougher than most asteroids likely to be found in deep space and/or the Enterprise had a severely depleted torpedo load, all your "but the asteroid was a bit weird!" objections are meaningless.

We had this already - as far as it concerns the Voyager episode Rise. You have no evidence that their photon torpedo was set on a maximum yield. They thought that their setting is enough to vaporize it. Insofar we can not derive anything meaningful for a maximum yield of photon torpedoes from that episode.

You want to claim that their maximum yield was significantly higher than what the episode implied? By all means, present proof. Otherwise, this is just another appeal to ignorance.

It's the same with Star Trek: TMP.

Suuuure. In a situation where most of the ship's functions were screwed up by the wormhole, and navigational deflectors were completely out (as Ilia said when the asteroid first appeared), the absolute last thing that Decker would want to do is to fire their torpedoes at maximum power and destroy as much of the asteroid as possible in order to minimize the risk to the ship.

My fault - I was not clear enough in what you are supposed to prove.

Prove that this also happens if the energy is not applied uniformly to the object.

Prove that in such a case the energy will not simply cut through the object or pierce it.

Again, you're over-complicating things. This is just basic physics. Would the object vaporize cleanly all in one go? Probably not, no. Some fragments might be blasted away from the initial explosion. But they would only last for the merest fraction of a second before the superheated gases and residual energy from the initial blast vaporized them too. They'd be long gone before Kim got any solid confirmation on how much of the asteroid was remaining.

As for not cutting a hole in the object, that would only be applicable to beam weapons that somehow transfer very little energy to their target. It wouldn't be a consideration with torpedo explosions.

I am honestly claiming that the energy of the Death Star, if it is concentrated on a small spot of a 200m-wide asteroid, will not vaporize the asteroid. It leaves the asteroid with a hole that the beam has burned.

Wait, what? Back up a bit. Do you honestly not realize what you just said? According to your logic, the Death Star shouldn't have destroyed Alderaan!

What, was Grand Moff Tarkin's evil plan to coerce the Rebel Base's location out of Leia by threatening to burn holes in Senator Organa's lawn unless she co-operated?

[Lord Revan]

Here's a thing the Scimitar had several torpedo tubes (I can't remember that exact number atm and I really don't want to watch Nemesis to find out) so why have the Thalaron weapon at all if regular torps set to "max yield" can do the same job faster. I don't remember Shinzon mentioning that he wanted Earth's infrastructure intact so there's no reason to assume that.

[Borgholio]

Scimitar had 27 torpedo tubes and 52 disruptor banks. So yeah even that wasn't considered as potent as the Thalaron weapon.

[DaveJB]

The Thalaron weapon was indicated to be able to wipe out all life on a single planet with one blast, theoretically making it better-suited to the sort of sneak attack that Shinzon intended to carry out. Still, that number of torpedo launchers (I'd forgotten exactly how wanked-out the Scimitar was) would give it the ability to destroy around 2-3% of the Earth's crust in one volley if it had these supposed planet-buster weapons. So yeah, the Thalaron weapon would be overkill, all that Shinzon would need to do would be to bring another couple of warbirds armed with the planet-buster torpedoes, and they'd be able to wipe out Earth in probably not much longer than the 8 minutes it takes to charge up the Thalaron weapon (and that's assuming it doesn't take even longer to charge up to planet-killer levels, bearing in mind they only needed to blast the E-E in Nemesis).

Though granted, all this is consistent with Shinzon's character trait of being a complete idiot.

[Lord Revan]

The Thalaron weapon was indicated to be able to wipe out all life on a single planet with one blast, theoretically making it better-suited to the sort of sneak attack that Shinzon intended to carry out. Still, that number of torpedo launchers (I'd forgotten exactly how wanked-out the Scimitar was) would give it the ability to destroy around 2-3% of the Earth's crust in one volley if it had these supposed planet-buster weapons. So yeah, the Thalaron weapon would be overkill, all that Shinzon would need to do would be to bring another couple of warbirds armed with the planet-buster torpedoes, and they'd be able to wipe out Earth in probably not much longer than the 8 minutes it takes to charge up the Thalaron weapon (and that's assuming it doesn't take even longer to charge up to planet-killer levels, bearing in mind they only needed to blast the E-E in Nemesis).

Though granted, all this is consistent with Shinzon's character trait of being a complete idiot.

true enough but it's strongly implied if not outright stated that Shinzon had help from within the Romulan military, so if torps had indeed the potential firepower people in this thread imply wouldn't someone at somepoint say "you know what if instead of building this ship around a weapon that's based on using radiation type that not so long ago was considered only theoretical and instead add a few more torpedo tubes"

[WATCH-MAN]

Okay, something screwy is going on here.

Oh yes, something screws is going on here.

There is someone who does not understand the conception of burden of proof, someone who thinks that he can refute a witness statement with the fact that he didn't see what the witness has seen.

The reply to my last post is so similar to Darkstar's posting style it's almost uncanny.

I take that as a compliment as English isn't my mother tongue.

In any event, I'm just going to reply to the pertinent points, and ignore the attempts to pad out the post length and repetitions of the same few arguments:

You decide what are pertinent points?

The dialogue says that thirty percent of the crust was destroyed. That's a proof.

Maybe it is not the strongest and most reliable evidence - as witness statements are never - but nevertheless it is an admissible evidence.

Proof and evidence are not the same thing.

As I have said already, English is not my mother tongue.

If the meaning of both words are different, I do not know.

Maybe you can explain the difference to me.

No one line of dialogue can act as absolute proof for anything.

There is no such thing as »absolute proof for anything.«

It can only be looked at as evidence, which must be supported by additional evidence to form a conclusion.

Please provide any sources that claims that you can ignore a witness statement if you have neither additional or contrary evidence.

If the only evidence is the witness statement and it can't be refuted, it is enough.

This evidence is even more convincing as nobody on the bridge has questioned this statement. If it were totally absurd, someone would have noticed the impossibility of what was stated and would have said something. Insofar the other witnesses regarded what was stated as laying in the realm of possibility.

Actually, the officer who made that statement said that 30% of the crust had been destroyed, and then immediately reported no change in the Founder lifesigns. Tain likely realized straight away that regardless of whether she meant "crust" or "surface," there was no way their bombardment could have failed to kill any of the Founders, and somehow I doubt that a pissing match over the officer's mistaken choice of words was his main priority.

Circular logic. You want to prove that the officer misspoke with an explanation that premises that the officer misspoke.

The correct argumentation would be: Even if the officer misspoke, Tain had better things to do than to rebuke the officer.

But that's a non sequitur .

We can not derive anything meaningful from the fact that Tain did not rebuke the officer.

Besides, how do you explain the fact that they expected to take roughly twenty minutes of sustained bombardment to destroy 30% of the crust, but the officer's dialogue suggests that it took them one bombardment and just ten seconds? Or are you suggesting that the Romulans frequently screw up their firepower estimates by a factor of 120, and just shrug it off as being no big deal?

You are »loling« to much but you are not thinking enough. There are several possibilities.

1. Different context: When Lovok spoke about the destruction of the planet's crust, he continued to explain that thereafter the mantle is supposed to get destroyed. In this context the destruction of the crust means a destruction that reveals the mantle. When the officer spoke about the destruction of the crust, he may have meant only the structural damage of it, how much is shattered.
2. The crust was easier to destroy than projected.

Please prove that it is wrong.

Prove that not thirty percent of the crust was destroyed.

I think you will have a hard time trying it because we do not see the crust as it was covered by the cloud layer.

Actually, the onus is on you to provide additional evidence that supports the officer's claim that 30% of the crust was destroyed.

You do not understand the conception of burden of proof.
If you are claiming that the officer misspoke, it is your claim and you have to prove it.

I do not have to provide additional evidence that supports the officer's statement.

How do you come to such a funny idea?

But as it happens, I can provide proof that we did not see 30% of the crust being destroyed, namely the fact that we didn't see any signs of significant disruption. The thickness of the cloud layer doesn't even come into it; if the torpedoes exploded near the surface they should have blasted molten debris far above the cloud layer, into low orbit. If they exploded far under the surface (nearer the mantle layer), then we should have witnessed the outer crust layers collapsing, which would have produced a huge cloud of dust and molten debris that, again, would have travelled well above the clouds.

Please provide evidence that if the torpedoes exploded near the surface they should have blasted molten debris far above the cloud layer, into low orbit.

Please provide evidence that if the torpedoes exploded far under the surface (nearer the mantle layer), then we should have witnessed the outer crust layers collapsing through the cloud layer.

Please provide evidence that if the outer crust is collapsing, that the produced cloud of dust and molten debris would have travelled well above the cloud layer in the few seconds we saw the planet.

Please provide evidence about the altitude of the cloud layer.

By the way, you're still sticking with the same damn circular logic fallacy. Why didn't we see any signs of disruption to the surface? Because the cloud layer was too thick. How do we know the cloud layer was too thick? Because we didn't see any signs of disruption to the surface. Prove that the cloud layer could have obscured the destruction of 30% of the crust. Also, I like the way you're treating the clouds as some unfalsifiable magic bullet that just let you pull whatever claim you want out of your backside, while seeing no need to explain how they actually support your conclusions.

You show again that you do not know where the burden of proof lies.

We have evidence that thirty percent of the crust was destroyed.

You want to refute it by arguing that we would have seen such destruction.

Your problem is that this argument premisses that we could have seen the destruction, that the view wasn't obscured.

That means that you have to provide evidence that the cloud layer was not thick enough to obscure anything of relevance.

How often have you seen the Cardassians or the Romulans trying to destroy a planet?
In which event you have seen do you think they should have used such weapons?

I can't speak so much for the Romulans (the only planet-killing weapon we ever saw from them was the Thaleron beam, a completely different type of weapon to your mooted mega torpedoes), but as far as the Cardassians are concerned, we've seen their bigass weapon of choice - the Dreadnought from the Voyager episode of the same name, which was about half the size of Voyager itself, and indicated to have the power of 400 photon torpedoes, but only implied to be capable of destroying a small continent. Why would the Cardassians go to all the trouble of inventing such a complicated weapon when it would be thousands of times less powerful than one of these planet-buster torpedoes you claim they have?

There is a difference in building a weapon that could be considered a completely autonomous warship in its own right (artificial intelligence, life support, warp-drive, deflector, shields, additional weapon systems as disruptors, quantum torpedoes, a thoron shock emitter and a plasma wave generator) and a simple torpedo you have to carry to the planet you want to attack. Therefore there is no base to claim that the Dreadnought is their weapon of choice. It is a weapon for special missions, while weapons as used in the attack on the Founder's planet are good for other missions.

The Dreadnought from the Voyager episode had a certain mission (destroy a Maquis munitions base on the Planetoid Alpha 441 in the Demilitarized Zone) which didn't needed a higher yield but something that is officially not considered a ship, could mask its warp trail and thus could enter the Demilitarized Zone undetected and is destroyed by achieving its mission without leaving any evidence.

A fleet couldn't do that.

And to arm the Dreadnought with a higher yield warhead wasn't necessary to destroy the Maquis munitions base.

Let's compare it with a real world example: Would you take a nuclear warhead for a cruise missile if you only want to destroy a shack in Afghanistan in which a very important Taliban leader is you want to kill? Probably not as a conventional warhead is enough to destroy the shack and kill the Taliban leader. What you need is a way to quickly bring that warhead to the shack without alarming anyone.

Furthermore, since the Cardassians were annexed by the Dominion it stands to reason that the Dominion, even if they hadn't somehow invented these planet-busters independently, would have access to the Cardassian version. In that case, when the Female Changeling ordered that the population of Cardassia Prime be exterminated, why wouldn't they have just blasted the planet with a few mega torpedoes and high-tailed it out of there before the Federation-Klingon-Romulan-Cardassian fleet arrived? Clearly by that point they were beyond caring about war crimes.

Maybe they did not had the weapons on-board.

Maybe the weapons had to be build first. Even if you know how, you have to build them.

Maybe, if there were already such weapons, they were kept under tight wraps and under the control of the Cardassian military, who did not give them or the activation codes to the Dominion after the Dominion started to bombard Cardassian Cities.

Let me be sure I do understand your argument: Not the cloud layer obscured the detonations of the weapons but the torpedoes were so weak that we couldn't see their unobscured but too small detonations from orbit.

Is that your argument?

Actually, no, that's the argument that your "we can't see the weapon detonations because of the cloud cover" points to. I actually don't think that the Cardassian and Romulan weapons are so pathetically weak, but in the absence of any proof that the clouds were super-dense, it's the conclusion that your own argument actually indicates.

Do you really think that your opinion is convincing?

The Cardassian and the Romulan secret services are illegally building a fleet to attack and destroy the Founder's planet. They prognosticate that they are able to destroy the crust in one hour and the mantle in additionally five hours. But then they are using weapons »so pathetically weak« that their detonations can't be seen from orbit - and still expect to be successful.

Do you really think that this argumentation will get you any credibility?

This is neither a political debate nor a reality TV show. "Credibility" doesn't come into it.

Okay - Do you think that your opinion is convincing?

I mean I try to reconcile all the facts in theory A. You have issues with my theory - only because you do not like the conclusion - but that does not makes your theory B correct.

Quite apart from the fact that you do not even present a theory B.

Your only argument is that we did not see what you expected to see although what happened was obscured by a cloud layer and couldn't be seen.

Actually, I did present a theory - the fleet destroyed (or at least devastated) 30% of the planet's surface, something established as feasible by the capabilities of Star Trek weapons that were established elsewhere, and the officer mistakenly said "crust" instead of "surface."

The problem with that theory is that the Romulans and Cardassians do differentiate between the crust and the mantle of a planet. That makes it unlikely that they are confusing surface and crust.

But even if the officer confused both words, the fact remains, that they expected to destroy the crust in one hour and the mantle in additionally five hours.

That still demands super-anti-matter.

The problem here is that your approach is completely arse-backwards. Instead of looking at all the evidence presented by the episode and coming to the most reasonable assumption, you've started out with a single line of dialogue, assumed that it cannot possibly be mistaken, and tried to rationalize and make excuses for how everything else in Star Trek is actually consistent with it.

Even if the officer confused both words, the fact remains, that they expected to destroy the crust in one hour and the mantle in additionally five hours.

That still demands super-anti-matter.

Insofar your objection is - as you called it - nitpicking.

It's not relevant for the question if there is super-anti-matter.

Shockwaves

Not possible. They should be visibly heating up the atmosphere (for reference, they're moving approximately 12x the speed of a re-entering spacecraft), and they aren't.

As far as I know, waves do not transport matter. Is there friction in a wave?

You brought it up.

Actually, you were the one who posited that the Enterprise had a ludicrously low torpedo count. If you knew full well you couldn't prove that, you shouldn't have brought it up.

Actually, you were the one who posited that the TNG Episode Pegasus has any relevance for this debate.

I was the one who explained that we can not derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus concerning the yield of the photon torpedoes the Enterprise was armed with then as we do neither know how many photon torpedoes the Enterprise had nor which composition the asteroid had.

Both were premises of your argument. You can only derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus if you know both.

Can you prove that this was possible, that the Crazy Horse had enough torpedoes or that there was enough time to transfer enough torpedoes to the Crazy Horse before that ship departed to rendezvous with the Enterprise or that there was enough time to transfer any torpedoes to the Enterprise?

I don't have to prove shit. You haven't proven that the Enterprise's torpedo count was depleted in any way.

If you want to argue that we can derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus you have to show the relevant data.
In this case how many photon torpedoes the Enterprise had and what the composition of the asteroid was.

Do you know that Pressman didn't choose the Enterprise because Riker - who knew what was on the Pegasus - was onboard of the Enterprise.

Oh, yes. Choose a ship that might go into combat, has next to no torpedoes left, has families on-board that Picard will likely be factoring into any danger assessment that he makes, and whose crew Riker may very possibly be more loyal to than Pressman himself. Still, that theory would explain why the Pegasus crew mutinied on Pressman; it would mean the guy's obviously a complete moron.

The Federation and the Romulans were not at war. And as we have seen, neither the Romulans shot on the Enterprise nor shot the Enterprise at the Romulans.

Why should Pressman expect to go into combat?

And even if the Enterprise could have gone into a combat - how many combats have you seen where the Enterprise fired more than a few torpedoes?

Why should it has been important that the Enterprise has its full complement of photon torpedoes?

We do not know the composition of the asteroid in the TNG epsiode Pegasus and can not simply assume - as you have done - that it is not significantly different than the nickel-iron composition of most asteroids.

That's why we can not know what is necessary to destroy that asteroid.

And that is the reason why we can not derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus concerning the yield of the photon torpedoes the Enterprise was armed with then.

[...]

Only if you know how tough the asteroid is and know how many photon torpedoes Enterprise was armed with can you calculate anything meaningful.

But as we do know neither, we can not derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus concerning the yield of the photon torpedoes the Enterprise was armed with then.

Yet again with the appeal to ignorance. Unless you have some reason why we should regard the asteroid as being vastly tougher than most asteroids likely to be found in deep space and/or the Enterprise had a severely depleted torpedo load, all your "but the asteroid was a bit weird!" objections are meaningless.

If you want to argue that we can derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus you have to show the relevant data.
In this case how many photon torpedoes the Enterprise had and what the composition of the asteroid was.

To say that most asteroids have a nickel-iron-composition refers only to a statistical probability and does not prove that the asteroid in question is as most asteroids. And we can not simply assume that the asteroid is as most asteroids as most asteroids do not have gravimetric or magnetic fluctuations inside which could overpower the engines on a shuttlecraft.

We had this already - as far as it concerns the Voyager episode Rise. You have no evidence that their photon torpedo was set on a maximum yield. They thought that their setting is enough to vaporize it. Insofar we can not derive anything meaningful for a maximum yield of photon torpedoes from that episode.

You want to claim that their maximum yield was significantly higher than what the episode implied? By all means, present proof. Otherwise, this is just another appeal to ignorance.

The episode did not implied that they shot with their maximum yield. It showed that they shot with a weapon which's yield can be adjusted and expected to be able to destroy the asteroid. Nothing more.

You want to claim that they shot with their maximum yield? By all means, present proof.

It's the same with Star Trek: TMP.

Suuuure. In a situation where most of the ship's functions were screwed up by the wormhole, and navigational deflectors were completely out (as Ilia said when the asteroid first appeared), the absolute last thing that Decker would want to do is to fire their torpedoes at maximum power and destroy as much of the asteroid as possible in order to minimize the risk to the ship.

We know that a detonation of a photon torpedo in the vicinity of a ship can be detrimental to the ship and that it wouldn't be wise to fire photon torpedoes at a target that is to near to the own ship. As the collision was imminent, the distance to the asteroid had to be small. Why would Decker endanger the Enterprise by firing a photon torpedo with maximum yield if he can reduce the yield in a moments notice.

My fault - I was not clear enough in what you are supposed to prove.

Prove that this also happens if the energy is not applied uniformly to the object.

Prove that in such a case the energy will not simply cut through the object or pierce it.

Again, you're over-complicating things. This is just basic physics. Would the object vaporize cleanly all in one go? Probably not, no. Some fragments might be blasted away from the initial explosion. But they would only last for the merest fraction of a second before the superheated gases and residual energy from the initial blast vaporized them too. They'd be long gone before Kim got any solid confirmation on how much of the asteroid was remaining.

As for not cutting a hole in the object, that would only be applicable to beam weapons that somehow transfer very little energy to their target. It wouldn't be a consideration with torpedo explosions.

Prove that there would be residual energy from the initial blast.

Prove that the superheated gases expands faster than the fragments are blasted away.

Prove that a laser transfers very little energy to their target. (They are cutting through matter)

Prove that a torpedo explosion does distribute its energy uniformly over the whole target.

I am honestly claiming that the energy of the Death Star, if it is concentrated on a small spot of a 200m-wide asteroid, will not vaporize the asteroid. It leaves the asteroid with a hole that the beam has burned.

Wait, what? Back up a bit. Do you honestly not realize what you just said? According to your logic, the Death Star shouldn't have destroyed Alderaan!

What, was Grand Moff Tarkin's evil plan to coerce the Rebel Base's location out of Leia by threatening to burn holes in Senator Organa's lawn unless she co-operated?

There is a difference between drilling a hole through a 200m-wide asteroid and drilling a hole through a 12.000 km planet.
While the Death Star beam would drill through a 200m-wide asteroid faster than the energy could be conducted to other parts of the asteroid, this doe not have to be the case with a planet.

Or how do you explain laser cutting?

Do you really think that if the cutting laser is more powerful it will not vaporize matter of the target at the cutting line but instantly vaporize the whole target?

[WATCH-MAN]

Here's a thing the Scimitar had several torpedo tubes (I can't remember that exact number atm and I really don't want to watch Nemesis to find out) so why have the Thalaron weapon at all if regular torps set to "max yield" can do the same job faster. I don't remember Shinzon mentioning that he wanted Earth's infrastructure intact so there's no reason to assume that.

I know that you can read and write.

But either you haven't read what was written or you haven't understood it.

Nobody has claimed that »regular torps set to "max yield" can do the same« as the weapons used in TDIC or the Thalaron weapon.

It is the second time that I have to recommend that you read what was written first.

You could save us all time.

It starts to get paltry.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Watch-Man, for reference I've snipped out the parts where you acknowledged my points. Thanks you.

No mention made of super-torpedoes.

From scene 6 of the TNG episode Best of both worlds:

• • • • • • HANSON:
        Commander Shelby took over Borg tactical analysis six months ago. I've learned to give her a wide latitude when I want to get things done... That's how I intend to operate here.
        
        • • SHELBY:
        My priority has been to develop some kind, any kind of defense strategy...
        
        • • RIKER:
        Obviously nothing we have now can stop them.
        
        • • SHELBY:
        We've been designing new weapons... but they're still on the drawing board.

From scene 17 of the TNG episode Best of both worlds:

• • • • • • GEORDI:
        From what I've seen, I can't believe any of your new weapons systems can be ready in less than eighteen months, Commander.
        
        • • SHELBY:
        We've been projecting twenty-four.
        
        • • RIKER:
        Is there anything here we can try to adapt to our current defense systems... ?
        
        • • GEORDI:
        We'll have to look through the specs again.
        
        • • • • [...]
        • • SHELBY:
        I think we should look at modifying the plasma phaser design...

They did not mention on what weapons they are working at all - with the exception of the plasma phaser design that's the only weapon that may be possible to integrate quickly in their current defense systems.

Insofar that they did not mentioned super-torpedoes doesn't say anything.

I would accept that as a valid argument if we were only basing the super-antimatter idea on TDiC, but according to TOs Obsession (to bring things full-circle) the material for the weapon was readily available on Kirk's Enterprise and, logically, shoudl also have been readily available on Picard's ship.

On the other side it shows that more powerful weapons were in the pipeline. Insofar it can not be a surprise when later more powerful weapons are used. It is not a contradiction.

Indeed, and we do see more powerful weapons...in the form of the pulse phasers on the Defiant and quantum torpedoes. No sign of auper-antimatter fueled mega-torps though.

As for planetary-attack weapons used against ships, the supposed weapons seen in TDiC are apparently fired from standard torpedo tubes and beam mounts.

You did see the torpedo tubes?

Because I did not.

I can not say that the torpedo tubes of the ships of the Cardassian/Romulan attack fleet were standard torpedo tubes.

That may have to do something with my inability to remember any other instances in this era in which Cardassian war ships or Romulan war ships (especially the D'deridex class) have fired torpedoes at all.

The thing I know is that this were illegal build ships for an illegal attack on a planet. It's only to assume that these ships were armed with weapons which enable them to achieve their objective - maybe even forbidden weapons systems regular ships of the fleet of their governments are not armed with.

I'm fairly certain (though not 100%) that we see Warbirds firing torpedoes in the Dominion War battles. As for them being special-build illegal ships, we know the Cardassian ships were illegal builds, we don't know for certain (or at least I do not recall it being mentioned) that the Warbirds were likewise special-builds.

The super-beams at the very least should be able to be used.

Maybe the beam is only so effective against unprotected matter and can easily be blocked or diverted by shields.

Or it does consume so much power that other defense systems are suffering.

Good in a surprise attack on a planet when no return fire is expected - bad in a ship to ship or fleets engagement when you need your shields.

I will admit that it is plausible that the super-beams are only effective against unshielded targets. Of course since we don't see Borg Cubes using shields they shoudl still be useful on them. As for the "consumes so much power" part, again, plausible, but that requires a tacit admission that the super-antimatter is not used as fuel, when it was apparently ubiquitous enough on the E-Nil that using some to fabricate the super-bomb was apparently no problem.

The super-torps, even if you can't hit them directly (though mising such a large target is not a good sign for the Federation's weapons systems) program them for proximity detonations, like WW2 radar-fused flak shells.

Maybe it's like trying to shoot of an aircraft with an ICBM instead of an air to air missile?

The proximity detonation may destroy the aircraft - but not only the aircraft.

Funnily enough, the US (and possibly the Russians, not sure) did develop nuclear-tipped air-to-air rockets and surface-to-air missiles, for the express purpose of taking out multiple planes with one shot. At any rate, there are the two cases of from "Sacrifice of Angels" and "What you Leave Behind" where using such a proximity blast would have been ideal, but they do not get used.

This is a possibility. But if the Federation believed that, then they would have accepted Bashir's recommendation to surrender peacefully rather than suffer the expected 900 billion casualties.

The problem is that Sisko did not believe his calculations.

• • • • • • SISKO:
        I don't accept it. Your entire argument is based on a series of statistical probabilities and assumptions.
        
        [...]
        
        • • SISKO:
        All right, doctor. You've made your recommendation. I'll pass it on to Starfleet Command.
        
        • • BASHIR:
        Sir, if you don't add your voice to this, they'll reject it out of hand.
        
        • • SISKO:
        I'm counting on it.

and as Bashir learned later, Sisko was right to not trust statistical probabilities and assumptions:

• • • • • • BASHIR:
        Maybe our projections were wrong.
        
        • • JACK:
        How can you say that? We factored in every variable, every contingency -the equations don't lie! (pointing at Sarina) You. You ruined everything.
        
        • • BASHIR:
        What do you make of that, Jack? Why didn't you anticipate it -why didn't you factor her into your equations? You thought you knew everything, but you didn't even know what was going to happen in this room. One person derailed your plans. One person changed the course of history. I don't know about you, but that gives me hope. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, things don't have to turn out the way we thought.

Conceded, I had mis-remembered Sisko's lines. It doesn't affect the other points though.

They already knew that things were bad, and that ift he reinforcements arrived they would not be able to survive. And yet they go for a final throw of the dice rather than submit. And again, despite the ideal conditions for using such weapons against the Dominion fleet, it is not done or even considered.

They still had hope.

Hope is irrelevant to a military strategist, especially when they have weaposn available that could go a long way towards redressing the issue. As for whether they still had hope, I question that, everyone involved was fully aware the battle was a "do or die" moment, hence Sisko's order that if anyone broke through the Dominion fleet, they go straight to DS9 and try to stopt he minefield being destroyed.

Incidentaly, I find it vaguely amusing that this started as "the Federation has some super-brand antimatter" and has become "the Federation et al has uber-weapons but they never use them" ignoring the fact that the uber-weapons are fuelled by the uber-antimatter that should have so many other uses that it should be everywhere.

For instance, if this super-antimatter exists, it would logically be used for fuel (or they'd be total fucking idiots, and we'd have two types of antimatter present, one far more powerful than the other, which seems absurd at best). If the uber-antimatter is used as fuel, then starships should never have to re-fuel. And before you say that maybe the ships just sue that absurd amount of power, if that were true having fusion reactors on hand as a back-up would be pointless, as instead of being merely a hundred times less powerful, it would be millions of times less and the fusion reactors couldn't power anything.

Creating the super-antimatter could be far more expensive than creating normal antimatter. It may be possible but not expedient using it as fuel. Furthermore the systems the Federation can build can only get along with so much energy. With the warp drive it is not only a question how much energy you can put into it but also how much energy it can tolerate without burning through. To have fusion reactor as a backup makes sense - even if you would use super-anitmatter. Most systems on board of a starship - especially life-support - simply do not need so much energy.

Again, plausible if TDiC is our only evidence for super-antimatter. But as I said earlier, TOS Obsession shows it apparently being ubiquitous enough (that means commonplace, or everywhere if you're unfamiliar with the term) that it was found on a starship and readily available to use.

Incidentally, you are a much nicer person to debate with than Treknobabble, thank you.

[WATCH-MAN]

An interesting dialogue I just heard:

• • • • • • SEVEN:
        Commander, you fired the tricobalt charge that destroyed the array.
        
        • • TUVOK:
        Correct.
        
        • • SEVEN:
        Under the Captain's orders. Did you also programme the charge?
        
        • • TUVOK:
        Yes.
        
        • • SEVEN:
        Under the Captain's orders as well?
        
        • • TUVOK:
        Not directly. I determined the yield.
        
        • • SEVEN:
        Twenty thousand teracochranes.
        
        • • TUVOK:
        That's correct.
        
        • • SEVEN:
        According to sensor estimates of the array's hull integrity, a charge of half that yield would have been sufficient.
        
        • • TUVOK:
        The Captain wanted nothing left for the Kazon to use. I calculated a yield certain to produce that result.

I present that dialogue from the Voyager episode »The Voyager Conspiracy« as evidence that not always torpedoes are used at their maximum yield, that sometimes their yield is programmed high enough to ensure the wanted result.

And I call to mind that Tuvok programmes the tricobalt charges in the middle of a battle.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It proves that Tricobalt devices are selective-yield weapons. It doesn't prove other weapons are, especially when Tricobalt devices are apparently rare and unusual weapons (which Seven points out in that very scene IIRC).

Nice spot though, I'd forgotten about that detail.

[WATCH-MAN]

I would accept that as a valid argument if we were only basing the super-antimatter idea on TDiC, but according to TOs Obsession (to bring things full-circle) the material for the weapon was readily available on Kirk's Enterprise and, logically, shoudl also have been readily available on Picard's ship.

Acknowledged

But what do you do with that situation?

I haven't thought about the TOS episode »Obsession« any more as we - DaveJB and I - debated primarily about the DS9 episode »The die is cast«. The problem is that the TOS episode »Obsession« presents another evidence supporting the conclusions from the DS9 episode »The die is cast«.

The only way to reconcile these facts I can see is to postulate a interstellar accord that forbids the development, building or deployment of such weapons.

Do you see another plausible solution?

On the other side it shows that more powerful weapons were in the pipeline. Insofar it can not be a surprise when later more powerful weapons are used. It is not a contradiction.

Indeed, and we do see more powerful weapons...in the form of the pulse phasers on the Defiant and quantum torpedoes. No sign of super-antimatter fueled mega-torps though.

In the TOS episode »Obsession« the super-anti-matter wasn't used in a torpedo.
In the DS9 epsiode »The die is cast« the super-anti-matter was used in torpedoes - but they had month to build them.
Maybe it isn't so easily to build such a torpedo in a few hours or days or to generate enough super-anti-matter.

By the way, I'm not sure that in the TOS episode »Obsession« a time they needed to generate the super-anti-matter was given. They were pursuing the creature with high-warp when Kirk decided to abort the pursuit and fly to the Tychos star system. They needed one point seven days to reach it. But we do not know how much time they needed after reaching the system to prepare their weapon and we do not know when the creature arrived in the system. It was flying with high-warp into another direction when Kirk decided to abort the pursuit. Insofar it is possible that they had days if not weeks to generate the super-anti-matter.

As for planetary-attack weapons used against ships, the supposed weapons seen in TDiC are apparently fired from standard torpedo tubes and beam mounts.

You did see the torpedo tubes?

Because I did not.

I can not say that the torpedo tubes of the ships of the Cardassian/Romulan attack fleet were standard torpedo tubes.

That may have to do something with my inability to remember any other instances in this era in which Cardassian war ships or Romulan war ships (especially the D'deridex class) have fired torpedoes at all.

The thing I know is that this were illegal build ships for an illegal attack on a planet. It's only to assume that these ships were armed with weapons which enable them to achieve their objective - maybe even forbidden weapons systems regular ships of the fleet of their governments are not armed with.

I'm fairly certain (though not 100%) that we see Warbirds firing torpedoes in the Dominion War battles. As for them being special-build illegal ships, we know the Cardassian ships were illegal builds, we don't know for certain (or at least I do not recall it being mentioned) that the Warbirds were likewise special-builds.

Please provide evidence for common D'deridex class warbirds having torpedo tubes.

Tain said: »Who said anything about the Central Command? This is a joint operation between the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar. We've been building a fleet of ships in the Orias System for months now.« While this isn't unambiguous, it implies that the Cardassian ships as well as the Romulan ships were build in the Orias System. Insofar as the Tal Shiar was never seen before or after using own warbirds - compare the TNG episode »Face of the Enemy« - it is not implausible that they are explicitly forbidden from having military equipment of any kind - as it is the case with the Obsidian Order.

The super-beams at the very least should be able to be used.

Maybe the beam is only so effective against unprotected matter and can easily be blocked or diverted by shields.

Or it does consume so much power that other defense systems are suffering.

Good in a surprise attack on a planet when no return fire is expected - bad in a ship to ship or fleets engagement when you need your shields.

I will admit that it is plausible that the super-beams are only effective against unshielded targets. Of course since we don't see Borg Cubes using shields they shoudl still be useful on them.

From the Voyager episode »Dark Frontier«

• • • • • • Borg:
        Generate primary shield matrix.
        
        • • [...]
        • • PARIS:
        It was Harry's idea to beam over a photon torpedo while they were remodulating their shields.
        
        • • [...]
        • • SEVEN:
        Their weapons array is regenerating, but shields and transwarp drive are still offline.
        
        • • [...]
        • • TUVOK:
        We are at the shield matrix. Stand by.
        
        • • KIM:
        The primary shield generator. I've got it.
        
        • • TUVOK:
        Spatial charges. Here, there and there.
        
        • • [...]
        • • TUVOK:
        Activate the charges.
        
        [...]
        
        • • JANEWAY:
        Bridge, their shields are down. Energise.
        
        [...]
        
        • • PARIS:
        They've got it. They're pulling it in toward a docking port along the central radius. Five hundred metres, two hundred. They're dropping shields.
        
        • • CHAKOTAY:
        Energise.
        
        • • TORRES:
        They're in.
        
        • • EMH:
        Bio-dampeners are stable. They're as good as invisible.
        
        • • CHAKOTAY:
        The Sphere?
        
        • • TORRES:
        The shields are back up. They're assimilating the shuttle.
        
        • • CHAKOTAY:
        Keep a sensor lock on the away team. Maintain course.
        
        [...]
        
        • • SEVEN:
        They've developed a modulating phaser pulse that can penetrate our shields.
        
        • • QUEEN:
        How do you propose we adapt?
        
        • • SEVEN:
        You are the Borg. You tell me.
        
        • • QUEEN:
        Thirty nine of their vessels are converging on our position. They're firing weapons. Our shields are failing. We will be destroyed. How do you propose we adapt?
        
        • • SEVEN:
        Triaxillate our shield geometry to absorb their phaser pulses.
        
        • • QUEEN:
        I was thinking the same thing. Adaptation complete. They're no longer a threat.

So much talk about Borg shields in only one episode - and you are claiming that the Borg do not have shields.

As for the "consumes so much power" part, again, plausible, but that requires a tacit admission that the super-antimatter is not used as fuel, when it was apparently ubiquitous enough on the E-Nil that using some to fabricate the super-bomb was apparently no problem.

I do not know how the super-anti-matter is generated. Maybe they are producing some form of degenerated anti-matter from their normal anti-matter - something like neutronium-anti-matter?

Please do not misunderstand me. I do not claim that this is the case and I can't prove it. It's only a possibility.

The super-torps, even if you can't hit them directly (though mising such a large target is not a good sign for the Federation's weapons systems) program them for proximity detonations, like WW2 radar-fused flak shells.

Maybe it's like trying to shoot of an aircraft with an ICBM instead of an air to air missile?

The proximity detonation may destroy the aircraft - but not only the aircraft.

Funnily enough, the US (and possibly the Russians, not sure) did develop nuclear-tipped air-to-air rockets and surface-to-air missiles, for the express purpose of taking out multiple planes with one shot.

Never heard of it.

Interesting.

Can you give me references I can read more about it?

At any rate, there are the two cases of from "Sacrifice of Angels" and "What you Leave Behind" where using such a proximity blast would have been ideal, but they do not get used.

The problem is that if they had used such weapons in this situations, they couldn't have wipped out the whole Dominion in the alpha quadrant. And then the Dominion would have used such weapons too.

I would like to refer to real world examples.

Germany had enough chemical weapons in WWII but - although they lost the war - decided to not use them.

The USA have used its nuclear weapons only once. Since then they have never used them again - although in Korea or Vietnam it was considered.

They already knew that things were bad, and that ift he reinforcements arrived they would not be able to survive. And yet they go for a final throw of the dice rather than submit. And again, despite the ideal conditions for using such weapons against the Dominion fleet, it is not done or even considered.

They still had hope.

Hope is irrelevant to a military strategist, especially when they have weaposn available that could go a long way towards redressing the issue. As for whether they still had hope, I question that, everyone involved was fully aware the battle was a "do or die" moment, hence Sisko's order that if anyone broke through the Dominion fleet, they go straight to DS9 and try to stopt he minefield being destroyed.

Again:

• • • • »The problem is that if they had used such weapons in this situations, they couldn't have wipped out the whole Dominion in the alpha quadrant. And then the Dominion would have used such weapons too.
        
        I would like to refer to real world examples.
        
        Germany had enough chemical weapons in WWII but - although they lost the war - decided to not use them.
        
        The USA have used its nuclear weapons only once. Since then they have never used them again - although in Korea or Vietnam it was considered.«

Creating the super-antimatter could be far more expensive than creating normal antimatter. It may be possible but not expedient using it as fuel. Furthermore the systems the Federation can build can only get along with so much energy. With the warp drive it is not only a question how much energy you can put into it but also how much energy it can tolerate without burning through. To have fusion reactor as a backup makes sense - even if you would use super-anitmatter. Most systems on board of a starship - especially life-support - simply do not need so much energy.

Again, plausible if TDiC is our only evidence for super-antimatter. But as I said earlier, TOS Obsession shows it apparently being ubiquitous enough (that means commonplace, or everywhere if you're unfamiliar with the term) that it was found on a starship and readily available to use.

Again:

• • • • »In the TOS episode »Obsession« the super-anti-matter wasn't used in a torpedo.
        In the DS9 epsiode »The die is cast« the super-anti-matter was used in torpedoes - but they had month to build them.
        Maybe it isn't so easily to build such a torpedo in a few hours or days or to generate enough super-anti-matter.
        
        By the way, I'm not sure that in the TOS episode »Obsession« a time they needed to generate the super-anti-matter was given. They were pursuing the creature with high-warp when Kirk decided to abort the pursuit and fly to the Tychos star system. They needed one point seven days to reach it. But we do not know how much time they needed after reaching the system to prepare their weapon and we do not know when the creature arrived in the system. It was flying with high-warp into another direction when Kirk decided to abort the pursuit. Insofar it is possible that they had days if not weeks to generate the super-anti-matter.«

And:

• • • • »I do not know how the super-anti-matter is generated. Maybe they are producing some form of degenerated anti-matter from their normal anti-matter - something like neutronium-anti-matter?
        
        Please do not misunderstand me. I do not claim that this is the case and I can't prove it. It's only a possibility.«

[WATCH-MAN]

It proves that Tricobalt devices are selective-yield weapons. It doesn't prove other weapons are, especially when Tricobalt devices are apparently rare and unusual weapons (which Seven points out in that very scene IIRC).

Do you really need proof that photon torpedoes are selective-yield weapons?

[Eternal_Freedom]

I would accept that as a valid argument if we were only basing the super-antimatter idea on TDiC, but according to TOs Obsession (to bring things full-circle) the material for the weapon was readily available on Kirk's Enterprise and, logically, shoudl also have been readily available on Picard's ship.

Acknowledged

But what do you do with that situation?

I haven't thought about the TOS episode »Obsession« any more as we - DaveJB and I - debated primarily about the DS9 episode »The die is cast«. The problem is that the TOS episode »Obsession« presents another evidence supporting the conclusions from the DS9 episode »The die is cast«.

The only way to reconcile these facts I can see is to postulate a interstellar accord that forbids the development, building or deployment of such weapons.

Do you see another plausible solution?

The possible solution is that whatever they used was not antimatter, or there was a reaction wit hthe atmosphere, or the cloud creature itself, to produce such an effect. It's an outlier, which is always a pain in the ass. But honestly, I think that assuming a weird situation in that one case is easier than assuming some weird treaties/restrictions (self-imposed or otherwise) on every AQ power is a more likely outcome.

On the other side it shows that more powerful weapons were in the pipeline. Insofar it can not be a surprise when later more powerful weapons are used. It is not a contradiction.

Indeed, and we do see more powerful weapons...in the form of the pulse phasers on the Defiant and quantum torpedoes. No sign of super-antimatter fueled mega-torps though.

In the TOS episode »Obsession« the super-anti-matter wasn't used in a torpedo.
In the DS9 epsiode »The die is cast« the super-anti-matter was used in torpedoes - but they had month to build them.
Maybe it isn't so easily to build such a torpedo in a few hours or days or to generate enough super-anti-matter.

The bomb used in Obsession was small enough that it would fit, at the very least, in a probe casing. Or a shuttlecraft if needs be.

By the way, I'm not sure that in the TOS episode »Obsession« a time they needed to generate the super-anti-matter was given. They were pursuing the creature with high-warp when Kirk decided to abort the pursuit and fly to the Tychos star system. They needed one point seven days to reach it. But we do not know how much time they needed after reaching the system to prepare their weapon and we do not know when the creature arrived in the system. It was flying with high-warp into another direction when Kirk decided to abort the pursuit. Insofar it is possible that they had days if not weeks to generate the super-anti-matter.

It's been a while since I saw the episode (my recollections of the bomb come from still images) but I don't think it was stretched out into days. At any rate, no mention is made of a) the material being anything special or b) "but that'll take days to produce" or anything like that. As best I can recall it was just there.

Please provide evidence for common D'deridex class warbirds having torpedo tubes.

Easy enough, Season six, "Tears of the Prophets," multiple D'Deridex warbirds seen firing torpedoes from forward launchers when attacking the weapons platforms (can be seen just after Martok orders Sisko to attack).

Incidentally, I could have been mean and said the onus is on you to show that they don't normally have torpedo tubes, but it's an easy answer and I'm feeling nice today

Tain said: »Who said anything about the Central Command? This is a joint operation between the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar. We've been building a fleet of ships in the Orias System for months now.« While this isn't unambiguous, it implies that the Cardassian ships as well as the Romulan ships were build in the Orias System. Insofar as the Tal Shiar was never seen before or after using own warbirds - compare the TNG episode »Face of the Enemy« - it is not implausible that they are explicitly forbidden from having military equipment of any kind - as it is the case with the Obsidian Order.

It is plausible that the Romulan ships are special-builds. But they certainly weren't built in the Orias system. When that shipyard was revealed in DS9's "Defiant" only Cardassian ships are seen. It would be absurd to say they were built there, as it would mean the Tal'Shiar giving Cardassians the designs for their most advanced warships. They may ahve cooperated that far, but (since you like real-world examples) as far as I know even the US and UK navy's don't trade design secrets for their nuclear submarines (for example).

Even so, if the Warbirds were special-builds, why go tot he trouble and expense of building full-sized Warbirds when a smaller, "missile frigate" type of vessel would have been sufficient? Why not simply provide crew for the Cardassian ships?

I will admit that it is plausible that the super-beams are only effective against unshielded targets. Of course since we don't see Borg Cubes using shields they shoudl still be useful on them.

From the Voyager episode »Dark Frontier«

SNIP List

So much talk about Borg shields in only one episode - and you are claiming that the Borg do not have shields.

No, I said Borg Cubes don't have shields. Nitpicky I grant you, but since the Cubes are their primary vessel for attacking/assimilating planets, it is significant.

As for the "consumes so much power" part, again, plausible, but that requires a tacit admission that the super-antimatter is not used as fuel, when it was apparently ubiquitous enough on the E-Nil that using some to fabricate the super-bomb was apparently no problem.

I do not know how the super-anti-matter is generated. Maybe they are producing some form of degenerated anti-matter from their normal anti-matter - something like neutronium-anti-matter?

Please do not misunderstand me. I do not claim that this is the case and I can't prove it. It's only a possibility.

I appreciate your point, but again, Obsession shwos that the stuff is (apparently) commonplace - Spock does not mention "but it will take x days to generate" he just says "an ounce wil be sufficient." If it really is super-antimatter, and it does take longer to generate, Kirk should have asked how long they'd have to wait, or something to indicate it isn't a commonplace material.

Funnily enough, the US (and possibly the Russians, not sure) did develop nuclear-tipped air-to-air rockets and surface-to-air missiles, for the express purpose of taking out multiple planes with one shot.

Never heard of it.

Interesting.

Can you give me references I can read more about it?

Certainly: Nike Hercules nuclear-tipped SAM and AIr- Genie nuclear-tipped air-to-air rocket. They're only wikipedia pages but it shoudl give you a start.

At any rate, there are the two cases of from "Sacrifice of Angels" and "What you Leave Behind" where using such a proximity blast would have been ideal, but they do not get used.

The problem is that if they had used such weapons in this situations, they couldn't have wipped out the whole Dominion in the alpha quadrant. And then the Dominion would have used such weapons too.

I would like to refer to real world examples.

Germany had enough chemical weapons in WWII but - although they lost the war - decided to not use them.

The USA have used its nuclear weapons only once. Since then they have never used them again - although in Korea or Vietnam it was considered.

The "Sacrifice of Angels" example doesn't apply, since using such a weapon would have inflicted major losses on the Dominion in the AQ and allowed the Federation to continue blocking the wormhole, preventing further Dominion reinforcements en-masse. They would have had to build them in the AQ from scratch (which they do, but such a setback would have given the Federation a major breather).

Similarly, the "What you Leave Behind" example also fails, as by that point the Dominion were being pushed back into Cardassian territory and were making a last stand. THe female Changeling ordered the remaining Jem'Hadar and Breen ships to pull back to Cardassia Prime and fight to the last. Not "call in reinforcements from elsewhere" or anything, fight to the death. THe Allied commanders argue that they shoudl press on and end the Dominion threat then and there, with no mention of having to send task forces elsewhere.

Your real-life examples are interesting, but again, I'm not sure they apply. For the Germans, uing it's chemical weapon stockpiles would not have substantially tilted the balance of power in their favour (they couldn't use it to, say, wipe out Soviet tank armies in a stroke, or obliterate the Normandy landings). Chemcial weapons are not comparable in damage to nukes, which is the closest real-life analogue to the supposed uber-torpedoes.

As for the USA, well, again, they weren't facing an enemy that a) massively out-numbered them and, most importantly b) had equal or superior military technology. That's the key thing lacking from your Korea/Vietnam comparisons.

Hope is irrelevant to a military strategist, especially when they have weaposn available that could go a long way towards redressing the issue. As for whether they still had hope, I question that, everyone involved was fully aware the battle was a "do or die" moment, hence Sisko's order that if anyone broke through the Dominion fleet, they go straight to DS9 and try to stopt he minefield being destroyed.

Snip duplicate list

I answered this just above, please see that.

Creating the super-antimatter could be far more expensive than creating normal antimatter. It may be possible but not expedient using it as fuel. Furthermore the systems the Federation can build can only get along with so much energy. With the warp drive it is not only a question how much energy you can put into it but also how much energy it can tolerate without burning through. To have fusion reactor as a backup makes sense - even if you would use super-anitmatter. Most systems on board of a starship - especially life-support - simply do not need so much energy.

Again, plausible if TDiC is our only evidence for super-antimatter. But as I said earlier, TOS Obsession shows it apparently being ubiquitous enough (that means commonplace, or everywhere if you're unfamiliar with the term) that it was found on a starship and readily available to use.

SNIP reapeated point.
[/quote]

Dealt with above.

[DaveJB]

I take that as a compliment as English isn't my mother tongue.

Believe me, it's not intended as a compliment. The debate style you're employing - making your posts impractically large by objecting to virtually every sentence and refusing to concede on even the slightest point - is one that was used by Darkstar, an individual rather notorious around these parts in the days of old.

As I have said already, English is not my mother tongue.

If the meaning of both words are different, I do not know.

Maybe you can explain the difference to me.

In colloquial English at least, "evidence" is generally used to describe information that points to a certain conclusion, while "proof" is something that establishes it beyond all doubt. For instance, in a murder trial evidence of the accused's guilt might be a witness saying that they saw the accused walking towards the crime scene with a gun, while proof would be something like the actual moment of the murder being caught on video.

There is no such thing as »absolute proof for anything.«

And yet you're insisting that the officer's statement must be true, and shaping your interpretation of the episode's visuals around that one sentence.

Please provide any sources that claims that you can ignore a witness statement if you have neither additional or contrary evidence.

If the only evidence is the witness statement and it can't be refuted, it is enough.

I DO have contrary evidence. Namely the fact that the visuals in the episode in no way resemble what should happen if 30% of the crust is destroyed.

Circular logic. You want to prove that the officer misspoke with an explanation that premises that the officer misspoke.

Please don't throw around fallacy names like that. I argued that the officer mis-spoke with the premise that what she said didn't square up to the episode's visuals, nor the indicated abilities of photon torpedoes elsewhere.

Different context: When Lovok spoke about the destruction of the planet's crust, he continued to explain that thereafter the mantle is supposed to get destroyed. In this context the destruction of the crust means a destruction that reveals the mantle. When the officer spoke about the destruction of the crust, he may have meant only the structural damage of it, how much is shattered.

"Maybe! Maybe! Maybe!" This is getting really old. As we'll see below, you're demanding that I prove every little detail of my claims (even the ones which are just basic physics), while refusing to offer an actual shred of evidence other than the statement of one officer, and just throwing in a bunch of ad-hoc rationalizations without making any attempt to demonstrate how they explain what we see.

The crust was easier to destroy than projected.

120 times easier? When they likely had detailed sensor logs from the Defiant (which had a Romulan operative, T'Rul aboard at the time) that would have indicated if anything was especially unusual about the planet?

Please provide evidence that if the torpedoes exploded near the surface they should have blasted molten debris far above the cloud layer, into low orbit.

As mentioned before, the dino-killer asteroid (which didn't even come close to destroying a third of the crust) would have propelled molten debris into space. Stands to reason that the bombardment in TDIC, even if spread out over a larger area, would have done the same thing.

Please provide evidence that if the torpedoes exploded far under the surface (nearer the mantle layer), then we should have witnessed the outer crust layers collapsing through the cloud layer.

Please provide evidence that if the outer crust is collapsing, that the produced cloud of dust and molten debris would have travelled well above the cloud layer in the few seconds we saw the planet.

Turn 6 billion cubic kilometres of rock (or even any appreciable portion thereof) into lava vapour, and it has to go somewhere. And if all that vapour's buried under the outer, solid layers of the crust, guess where the vapour and the rock are going to go? Up, up and away, that's where!

Please provide evidence about the altitude of the cloud layer.

Actually, no. You provide evidence that this cloud layer was sufficiently thick to obscure the destruction of 6 billion cubic kilometres of rock. Because that's what you've been claiming this entire debate, and you've not done a goddamn thing to back it up.

Your problem is that this argument premisses that we could have seen the destruction, that the view wasn't obscured.

That means that you have to provide evidence that the cloud layer was not thick enough to obscure anything of relevance.

Oh, right. I'm the one who doesn't understand what the burden of proof is, when you're demanding that I prove a negative.

There is a difference in building a weapon that could be considered a completely autonomous warship in its own right (artificial intelligence, life support, warp-drive, deflector, shields, additional weapon systems as disruptors, quantum torpedoes, a thoron shock emitter and a plasma wave generator) and a simple torpedo you have to carry to the planet you want to attack. Therefore there is no base to claim that the Dreadnought is their weapon of choice. It is a weapon for special missions, while weapons as used in the attack on the Founder's planet are good for other missions.

Other missions which we've never, ever seen them used for?

The Dreadnought from the Voyager episode had a certain mission (destroy a Maquis munitions base on the Planetoid Alpha 441 in the Demilitarized Zone) which didn't needed a higher yield but something that is officially not considered a ship, could mask its warp trail and thus could enter the Demilitarized Zone undetected and is destroyed by achieving its mission without leaving any evidence.

A fleet couldn't do that.

Who said anything about a fleet? One ship would have been sufficient, if they were carrying these mega-torpedoes you're talking about. And don't tell me they can attach that stealth technology to a disposable missile, but not a warship.

And to arm the Dreadnought with a higher yield warhead wasn't necessary to destroy the Maquis munitions base.

Arming it with that gigantic antimatter warhead would have been unnecessary if they had mega-torpedoes. They could have built a far more compact (and thereby harder to shoot down) missile had they been using a warhead from one of those.

Maybe they did not had the weapons on-board.

Maybe the weapons had to be build first. Even if you know how, you have to build them.

Maybe, if there were already such weapons, they were kept under tight wraps and under the control of the Cardassian military, who did not give them or the activation codes to the Dominion after the Dominion started to bombard Cardassian Cities.

You are aware who we're talking about here, right? The Dominion, whose number one hobby is finding stuff to blow other stuff up with, and who wouldn't give two shits about executing as many Cardassians as it took before they handed over the secrets of these weapons.

Do you really think that your opinion is convincing?

Do you think that your opinion that 6 billion cubic kilometres of rock can be destroyed or otherwise massively disrupted without visibly affecting the surface is convincing?

But even if the officer confused both words, the fact remains, that they expected to destroy the crust in one hour and the mantle in additionally five hours.

That still demands super-anti-matter.

So exactly how much more powerful than "normal" antimatter would this super antimatter have to be, then?

As far as I know, waves do not transport matter. Is there friction in a wave?

Energy waves and atmospheric shockwaves are not the same thing.

Actually, you were the one who posited that the TNG Episode Pegasus has any relevance for this debate.

I was the one who explained that we can not derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus concerning the yield of the photon torpedoes the Enterprise was armed with then as we do neither know how many photon torpedoes the Enterprise had nor which composition the asteroid had.

Both were premises of your argument. You can only derive anything meaningful from the TNG episode Pegasus if you know both.

And I've explained to you that just because there are some unknown factors at play here doesn't mean that you get to toss the whole thing out. Unless you have proof that the asteroid was somehow massively stronger than the usual nickel-iron asteroids, or the Enterprise torpedo count was down to not more than about two dozen or so, nearly all possible interpretations of the data still put the torpedo yield somewhere in the megaton range.

The Federation and the Romulans were not at war. And as we have seen, neither the Romulans shot on the Enterprise nor shot the Enterprise at the Romulans.

Why should Pressman expect to go into combat?

Actual combat wouldn't have been necessary. Had the Romulan commander been a more aggressive individual in the mould of Tomalak (instead of the more cunning and duplicitous Sirol) and the Enterprise badly short on torpedoes, the potential threat would likely have been enough for Picard to call the mission off. Pressman wouldn't have wanted to take the risk of that happening.

To say nothing of the possibility of the Romulans finding the phase cloak first, going apeshit over the treaty violation, and attacking the Enterprise without bothering to wait for an explanation.

The episode did not implied that they shot with their maximum yield. It showed that they shot with a weapon which's yield can be adjusted and expected to be able to destroy the asteroid. Nothing more.

You want to claim that they shot with their maximum yield? By all means, present proof.

Photon torpedoes are indicated in the TNG and DS9 tech manuals to have a yield of 64MT. Other instances in the franchise have been broadly consistent with this claim. And the asteroid would have required around 60MT to totally vaporize it. Given Kim's expectation of leaving only small fragments (and thus presumably getting reasonably near the vaporization figure), we can assume that the torpedo was set to maximum, or very close to it.

We know that a detonation of a photon torpedo in the vicinity of a ship can be detrimental to the ship and that it wouldn't be wise to fire photon torpedoes at a target that is to near to the own ship. As the collision was imminent, the distance to the asteroid had to be small. Why would Decker endanger the Enterprise by firing a photon torpedo with maximum yield if he can reduce the yield in a moments notice.

Please show that the danger from blasting the asteroid at full power was greater than potentially failing to destroy the asteroid and crashing into it before they could fire off a second shot.

Prove that there would be residual energy from the initial blast.

Where do you think the energy's going to go, if there's significantly in excess of vaporization energy, but the asteroid doesn't instantly vaporize all at once?

Prove that the superheated gases expands faster than the fragments are blasted away.

The gases expand rapidly due to the vacuum of space. Fragments don't. This isn't that complicated.

Prove that a laser transfers very little energy to their target. (They are cutting through matter)

Prove that a torpedo explosion does distribute its energy uniformly over the whole target.

I never claimed either of these things.

[WATCH-MAN]

The possible solution is that whatever they used was not antimatter, or there was a reaction wit hthe atmosphere, or the cloud creature itself, to produce such an effect. It's an outlier, which is always a pain in the ass. But honestly, I think that assuming a weird situation in that one case is easier than assuming some weird treaties/restrictions (self-imposed or otherwise) on every AQ power is a more likely outcome.

The problem is that I am not fond of outlier explanations. You can have outliers in experiments, in measured data or in statistical data.

But what happened in the TOS episode »Obsession« and in the DS9 episode »The die is cast« did happen.

I am the opinion that we have to try to reconcile it and do not ignore it.

Of course you are allowed to have another opinion - although I do not think that such an opinion is practical in real life.

Improbable things and singular events do happen in real life.

Only because the USA have used their nuclear weapons only once and have used in all other events only conventional weapons (before and since then), I can not conclude that they do not have nuclear weapons (any more), that their usage of nuclear weapons was an outlier and they aren't able to use nuclear weapons (any more).

I have to try to reconcile it. And in this case it is easy to reconcile as we know that on the one side the threat of mutual destruction and on the other side (domestically and external) political reasons kept them from using nuclear weapons again. We know this as it happened in real life.

But imagine we would have seen only parts of this via a TV-series that shows only the events in which a military unit or base is involved. The TV series has shown us the attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and since then all the wars in which the USA were involved. We would see situations - as the Vietnam war - in which it would be plausible to use nuclear weapons again. But the TV series had not shown us all the nuclear weapons tests that happened since WWII and it had not shown us all the nuclear weapons the USA have. In the series we have only seen the conventional weapons - grenades, torpedoes, missiles, cruise missiles and bombs (all only used with conventional warheads) as the military unit or base which the TV series is about were not involved in the nuclear weapons tests and do not have access to nuclear weapons. And the TV series had not shown us all the things that happened in Washington - all the (domestically and external) political shenanigans going on in Washington.

Of course - from what was seen in such a TV series - it is not totally implausible to conclude that the USA do not have nuclear weapons any more, that the two weapons they used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were their only two nuclear weapons and a huge bluff to get Japan to surrender.

But of course that wouldn't be the only possible explanation. An explanation that assumes that there are going on things off-screen that explains why the USA are not using nuclear weapons any more - although they still have them - is possible too. And - as it happens - it would be nearer to the truth.

To me it is the same with Star Trek. We know that the series is only about one ship or base. We know that the series does not show us all that happens. We know that many things are happening of screen - even important things. Insofar we can reconcile such »outliers« if we find a possible explanation about what happened off-screen that fit to the facts shown on-screen.

Of course such explanation would be only one of several possible explanations. But it would show that »outliers« are reconcilable and that they do not have to be ignored.

The next question is, where the burden of proof lies.

Does the one who claims that a shown event is an outlier and has to be ignored because it can't be reconciled has the burden of proof?

Or has the one who gives a possible explanation that shows that it can be reconciled and thus does not needed to be ignored has the burden of proof?

My opinion is that the first one has to prove that what we have seen has to be ignored as it can't be reconciled. After all: He is the one who invokes an irreconcilability.



The thing is that your explanation - a reaction with the atmosphere or the creature - is not only possible but to be expected. Of course will the anti-matter react with the matter of the atmosphere and of the creature in an annihilation. But such an annihilation dwarfs all possible chemical reactions that could go on besides the annihilation.

And in the TOS episode »Obsession« they explicitly spoke of anti-matter:

• • • • • • KIRK:
        Antimatter seems our only possibility.
        
        • • SPOCK:
        An ounce should be sufficient. We can drain it from the ship's engines and transport it to the planet surface in a magnetic vacuum field.
        
        • • [...]
        • • SPOCK:
        A matter-antimatter blast will rip away half the planet's atmosphere.

It's possible that Spock left out that the from the ship's engines drained anti-matter still has to be processed to the super-anti-matter - as he could assume that Kirk knew this. But it seems implausible that they misspoke.

The bomb used in Obsession was small enough that it would fit, at the very least, in a probe casing. Or a shuttlecraft if needs be.

I do not know which probe casing you are referring to. But I think it was to large to fit in a photon torpedo casing if you do not want to remove other important parts.
As putting it in a shuttle craft - such a shuttlecraft could be shot down far easier than a torpedo - as seen in the TNG episode »Best of both worlds« when the Borg cube shot down three sentry pods of the Mars Defense Perimeter easily.

By the way, I'm not sure that in the TOS episode »Obsession« a time they needed to generate the super-anti-matter was given. They were pursuing the creature with high-warp when Kirk decided to abort the pursuit and fly to the Tychos star system. They needed one point seven days to reach it. But we do not know how much time they needed after reaching the system to prepare their weapon and we do not know when the creature arrived in the system. It was flying with high-warp into another direction when Kirk decided to abort the pursuit. Insofar it is possible that they had days if not weeks to generate the super-anti-matter.

It's been a while since I saw the episode (my recollections of the bomb come from still images) but I don't think it was stretched out into days.

It's the same with me. It was not the impression I got from the episode. But that happens often when watching TV. Things that happened about the course of days and weeks are put into a 45 minutes episode. Of course they are leaving out all the thumbs twiddling. Sometimes only a cursory remark reveals that more time has passed. Sometimes not even that.

At any rate, no mention is made of a) the material being anything special or b) "but that'll take days to produce" or anything like that. As best I can recall it was just there.

You are right that no mention is made.

In the TOS episode »Obsession« they only said:

• • • • • • KIRK:
        Antimatter seems our only possibility.
        
        • • SPOCK:
        An ounce should be sufficient. We can drain it from the ship's engines and transport it to the planet surface in a magnetic vacuum field.
        
        • • [...]
        • • SPOCK:
        A matter-antimatter blast will rip away half the planet's atmosphere.

It's possible that Spock left out that the from the ship's engines drained anti-matter still has to be processed to the super-anti-matter - as he could assume that Kirk knew this.

Please provide evidence for common D'deridex class warbirds having torpedo tubes.

Easy enough, Season six, "Tears of the Prophets," multiple D'Deridex warbirds seen firing torpedoes from forward launchers when attacking the weapons platforms (can be seen just after Martok orders Sisko to attack).

Acknowledged.

But in this case we are again at the question if the torpedo tubes of the attack fleet are standard torpedo tubes. As the ships may be special-builds it is possible that they have special torpedo tubes for their special planetary assault weapons.

Tain said: »Who said anything about the Central Command? This is a joint operation between the Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar. We've been building a fleet of ships in the Orias System for months now.« While this isn't unambiguous, it implies that the Cardassian ships as well as the Romulan ships were build in the Orias System. Insofar as the Tal Shiar was never seen before or after using own warbirds - compare the TNG episode »Face of the Enemy« - it is not implausible that they are explicitly forbidden from having military equipment of any kind - as it is the case with the Obsidian Order.

It is plausible that the Romulan ships are special-builds. But they certainly weren't built in the Orias system. When that shipyard was revealed in DS9's "Defiant" only Cardassian ships are seen. It would be absurd to say they were built there, as it would mean the Tal'Shiar giving Cardassians the designs for their most advanced warships. They may ahve cooperated that far, but (since you like real-world examples) as far as I know even the US and UK navy's don't trade design secrets for their nuclear submarines (for example).

You may be right - but I thing it is irrelevant where the ships were build.

Even so, if the Warbirds were special-builds, why go tot he trouble and expense of building full-sized Warbirds when a smaller, "missile frigate" type of vessel would have been sufficient? Why not simply provide crew for the Cardassian ships?

You should ask the Tal Shiar or the Obsidian Order. We know at least from the Cardassian ships that they were build for the attack on the Founder's planet. I can't explain why they did build Keldon class war ships and not only - as you put it - »a smaller, "missile frigate" type of vessel«.

I will admit that it is plausible that the super-beams are only effective against unshielded targets. Of course since we don't see Borg Cubes using shields they shoudl still be useful on them.

From the Voyager episode »Dark Frontier«

SNIP List

So much talk about Borg shields in only one episode - and you are claiming that the Borg do not have shields.

No, I said Borg Cubes don't have shields. Nitpicky I grant you, but since the Cubes are their primary vessel for attacking/assimilating planets, it is significant.

• • • • • • TUVOK:
        One of the Cube's shield grids is fluctuating. Ventral axis, secondary emitter.
        
        • • [...]
        • • JANEWAY:
        Their ventral shield grid?
        
        • • TUVOK:
        Still fluctuating at a rate of point zero six terahertz.

Talk about a Cube's shield.

I appreciate your point, but again, Obsession shwos that the stuff is (apparently) commonplace - Spock does not mention "but it will take x days to generate" he just says "an ounce wil be sufficient." If it really is super-antimatter, and it does take longer to generate, Kirk should have asked how long they'd have to wait, or something to indicate it isn't a commonplace material.

I concede that Spock hadn't mentioned it.

But there are many things he does not mention. Maybe he knew that Kirk knew that it will be a time consuming process.

I'm not willing to invalidate this episode only because Spock did not mentioned something.

Certainly: Nike Hercules nuclear-tipped SAM and AIr- Genie nuclear-tipped air-to-air rocket. They're only wikipedia pages but it shoudl give you a start.

Thank you.

At any rate, there are the two cases of from "Sacrifice of Angels" and "What you Leave Behind" where using such a proximity blast would have been ideal, but they do not get used.

The problem is that if they had used such weapons in this situations, they couldn't have wipped out the whole Dominion in the alpha quadrant. And then the Dominion would have used such weapons too.

I would like to refer to real world examples.

Germany had enough chemical weapons in WWII but - although they lost the war - decided to not use them.

The USA have used its nuclear weapons only once. Since then they have never used them again - although in Korea or Vietnam it was considered.

The "Sacrifice of Angels" example doesn't apply, since using such a weapon would have inflicted major losses on the Dominion in the AQ and allowed the Federation to continue blocking the wormhole, preventing further Dominion reinforcements en-masse. They would have had to build them in the AQ from scratch (which they do, but such a setback would have given the Federation a major breather).

See, I always wondered why the fleet engagements always happened in a spitting distance. That may be the explanation. To prevent the enemy from using such weapons as he would destroy himself at such close distances.

But if fleet engagements are always such a close distance affair that you can't use super-weapons, why would you bring such super-weapons to it? They would only waste the place you would need for the weapons you can use and need to use.

Furthermore - even if the Federation could have prevented the Dominion from sending reinforcements through the wormhole by using WMDs, it wouldn't have affected the Dominion forces that were already in the Alpha quadrant. These forces were already strong enough to nearly defeat the Federation, Romulans and Klingons without any reinforcement. And had the Federation used WMD it had to expect that the Dominion forces in the Alpha Quadrant would use them too. Mutual destruction.

Similarly, the "What you Leave Behind" example also fails, as by that point the Dominion were being pushed back into Cardassian territory and were making a last stand. The female Changeling ordered the remaining Jem'Hadar and Breen ships to pull back to Cardassia Prime and fight to the last. Not "call in reinforcements from elsewhere" or anything, fight to the death. THe Allied commanders argue that they shoudl press on and end the Dominion threat then and there, with no mention of having to send task forces elsewhere.

After the Founder ordered the remaining Jem'Hadar and Breen ships to pull back to Cardassia Prime, no further battle occurred as Odo could achieve an agreement with the Founder.

We do not know what would have happened if the Dominion forces did not surrender. We do not know if the Federation/Klingon/Romulan ships had WMD they couldn't have used in the fleet engagement aboard. And we do not know that - even if they had such weapons onboard - they would have used them in the orbit of Cardassia Prime

Your real-life examples are interesting, but again, I'm not sure they apply. For the Germans, uing it's chemical weapon stockpiles would not have substantially tilted the balance of power in their favour (they couldn't use it to, say, wipe out Soviet tank armies in a stroke, or obliterate the Normandy landings). Chemcial weapons are not comparable in damage to nukes, which is the closest real-life analogue to the supposed uber-torpedoes.

The example still shows that there may be reason beyond pure military aspects. Chemical weapons undoubtedly would have been useful. But if the Germans had used them, the Allied would have too.

It's the same with the Dominion: If the Federation, Klingons or Romulans had used them, the Dominion and Cardassians would have too.

As for the USA, well, again, they weren't facing an enemy that a) massively out-numbered them and, most importantly b) had equal or superior military technology. That's the key thing lacking from your Korea/Vietnam comparisons.

You could argue that in such a case you can employ such weapons a fortiori as you do not have to expect any consequences. If you fight an enemy with equal or superior military technology you have to expect that you loose that war and are called to account for your deeds. And by using WMDs - such as the enemy has too - you have to expect mutual destruction.

I answered this just above, please see that.

see above

Dealt with above.

see above

[WATCH-MAN]

[..] objecting to virtually every sentence and refusing to concede on even the slightest point [...]

Please show me where you have conceded on even the slightest point.

And if you look at my debate with Eternal_Freedom, you can see that I am making concessions.

Maybe it is you and your stupidity.

A simple example:

You are saying:

Photon torpedoes are indicated in the TNG and DS9 tech manuals to have a yield of 64MT. Other instances in the franchise have been broadly consistent with this claim.

But you are also saying:

there IS an explanation for why we didn't see any explosions on the planet's surface, but it's not one you're going to like. Namely, that the explosive yield of the torpedoes was actually so small that the blasts weren't visible from orbit.

And then you are saying:

I actually don't think that the Cardassian and Romulan weapons are so pathetically weak, but in the absence of any proof that the clouds were super-dense, it's the conclusion that your own argument actually indicates.

Okay - what is it?

Are the torpedoes so pathetically weak that we couldn't see the blasts from orbit.

Or do they have a yield of 64MT?

But what then is the reason that we couldn't see the 64MT detonation from orbit?

I will not continue this debate with you as long as you do explain why we didn't see anything that happened beneath the cloud-layer - not even the torpedo detonations.

[Perseid]

*snip*

I actually don't think that the Cardassian and Romulan weapons are so pathetically weak, but in the absence of any proof that the clouds were super-dense, it's the conclusion that your own argument actually indicates.

Okay - what is it?

Are the torpedoes so pathetically weak that we couldn't see the blasts from orbit.

Or do they have a yield of 64MT?

But what then is the reason that we couldn't see the 64MT detonation from orbit?

I will not continue this debate with you as long as you do explain why we didn't see anything that happened beneath the cloud-layer - not even the torpedo detonations.

The simple answer is that the torpedoes used simply don't have the yield to create sufficient ejecta to disrupt the cloud layer. If they did then the cloud layer would have had noticable and long term changes for the duration of the bombardment and resulting devestation.

For reference read about Mount St Helens erupting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_erupt ... St._Helens
And that was only a VE 5 event, for reference the scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_explosivity_index

Yes they're wiki articles and concerning volcanoes, but the effect of a planetary bombardment could be compared to multiple volcanoes going off simultaniously (or so I'd imagine)

[WATCH-MAN]

The simple answer is that the torpedoes used simply don't have the yield to create sufficient ejecta to disrupt the cloud layer. If they did then the cloud layer would have had noticable and long term changes for the duration of the bombardment and resulting devestation.

For reference read about Mount St Helens erupting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_erupt ... St._Helens
And that was only a VE 5 event, for reference the scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_explosivity_index

Yes they're wiki articles and concerning volcanoes, but the effect of a planetary bombardment could be compared to multiple volcanoes going off simultaniously (or so I'd imagine)

I love it when people are coming and thinking they can add their two cents without knowing what we are talking about and - as it seems - without reading what was written already. Shows how clever they are.

It's especially nice when they are giving whole internet sides as a reference instead of concrete text passages and without even saying what to look for. Am I supposed to look what from what there is written is relevant and supports your claim?

But I was so nice and have searched for the terms »hight« and »altitude« and found here the following statement:

Eruption column and cloud - Height: Reached about 80,000 ft (24,400 m) in less than 15 minutes

That's a nice information. DaveJB or you should have provided it. It's not my task to provide you with information you could need.

And I have only quoted this information because it it does not solve the problem.

Is the cloud-layer higher than 25 km?

On an earth-like planet we could probably say: No - clouds aren't that high.

But the Founder's planet was a rogue planet and had a cloud layer that covered the whole planet thick enough that we couldn't see the surface at all and thick enough that even circular shockwaves spreading through those clouds traveling thousands of times the speed of sound for hundreds of kilometers couldn't disperse them.

And this cloud layer didn't consisted of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water. They weren't our nice white cirrocumulus. They weren't even thundery clouds.

What do you know about the cloud-layer and its hight on the Founder's planet?

How can you claim that the ejecta could disrupt the cloud layer without providing evidence first that the ejecta could reach the cloud layer at all?

And this in the few seconds the planet was shown. The Wikipedia-article, you referred to, said that the eruption column and cloud reached its hight in less than 15 minutes - implying that it needed more than a few seconds.

You had to provide also evidence that the torpedoes didn't detonated underground to cause as much damage to the crust as possible.

Ejecting matter into the atmosphere means only that energy that could have been used to damage the crust even more is wasted.

If it were my objective to destroy the crust and mantle of a planet, I'd try to let the torpedoes detonate as deep as necessary to maximize their effect on the crust and mantle.

How can you claim that the ejecta could disrupt the cloud layer without providing evidence first that there was ejecta at all?