General Empire vs Borg musings

[BabelHuber]

Q99, you also have to explain why people simply disappear on high phaser settings, without any side effects like an explosion. The NDF-theory can neatly explain this, your direct energy theory cannot.

Also, with your theory trained soldiers would behave stupidly, which is less plausible than technical limitations which we don't understand fully.

[Korgeta]

Really the borg are well able to take over the majority of the known quadrants shown to us on the show, Tuvok states in dark Frontier he detects "...thousands of integrated substructures, trillions of lifeforms...all borg" and if there are other unimatrixes (i think there are 2-3 more) then Borg do have a very powerful fighting force. More so then the Empire when it comes to numbers, the entirety of the borg is committed to assimilation, whereas the military is only a part of an empire, it still needs people to do other things like commerce, trade etc. The Borg have little to no diversity. As such they don't really have innovation.

This is why they don't steamroll over any races in their way immeditely, they "test" the resistance of a target and if they get crushed, they get crushed totally. But if that race put up a fight and even defeat them then the Borg can take whatever imperfections and improve. Perfection is the end result, if it was total conquest they be sending hundreds of ships at every race just as they did with the ones that created the slip stream. The era of the setting is also important, they had less ships when 8472 came, before then they were actually stronger in number.

We know the borg have no creativity because of how they fared against species 8472, hence the alliance with voyager who took what they currently had and won the war for them.

Simply put the Borg is all about having the quanity to take the quality.

How will they go in an all out fight with the empire?

In an all out war it wouldn't fare well, the borg would pick off the weakest spots, learn adapt and move to bigger targets, we know this as it was implied in the next generation they were the ones that destroyed some federation outposts that the enterprise thought were romulans only to find out later in the series it was them. It is not beneath the Borg to ambush a ship of space ewok orphans if it has anything of the like they can use to build on.

I would say under a crossover utilizing the borg should and can be a nightmare scenario for the Empire to deal with. That's not to say the Empire can't win, what would be of interest is to see what steps the Empire would take to ensure total victory.

If it was two ships, farming etc it can be put down quickly, providing the empire controls the other variables that the borg might try to exploit.

[Q99]

Q99, you also have to explain why people simply disappear on high phaser settings, without any side effects like an explosion. The NDF-theory can neatly explain this, your direct energy theory cannot.

The heck are you talking about?

Of course phasers have NDF. No one has argued against that. It just also has DET settings (as shown both in the show- like people have given you both photos and video of) and the document that introduced the phrase NDF. Additionally, having NDF does not mean there is not energy transferred to the target, it just means the exotic effects erasing the target makes it not really matter how hot they were when converted to tachyons or whatever. That's just straightforward logic (and, again, what the originated document which introduced NDF says, as well as aided by on screen direct statements of power output), the NDF effect requires a certain amount of energy deposited before it kicks in.

You aren't arguing NDF vs pure energy transfer. You're arguing NDF without energy vs NDF involving an energy component.

Also, with your theory trained soldiers would behave stupidly, which is less plausible than technical limitations which we don't understand fully.

Look, you're saying it's implausible that it does something that it has been shown to do. QED, you're wrong. Evidence trumps your theorycrafting.

You're wrong about it not working on metal, shown to work in multiple forms including whatever it is ship walls and doors are made of which also serve as effective cover with regularity.

"No, but see, it can't do what it's been seen to do," is never going to work no
matter how much you beg. So stop begging us to ignore evidence and just listen to you. You are not a higher authority than the screen.

As for soldiers fighting 'stupid,' we have other examples of them underusing phasers confirmed, and even assuming there is some reason why it's not stupid, you're the only one leaping to 'it must be because they can't do what they have been shown to do out of combat' rather than one of several other presented reasons. If your argument is it must be physical capabilities limitation, then you have to actually narrow it down to that (and, yknow, ignore onscreen evidence, but additionally to that), not just say you don't personally feel convinced by other explanations (which do not ignore onscreen evidence). Your feelings are not the ultimate arbiter of this and you're pretty heavily going against onscreen evidence here.

[BabelHuber]

Q99, have you even checked the main site?

http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Be ... heory.html

Hand Phaser Momentum and Battery Storage

According to the TM, hand phasers can "explosively uncouple" 650 cubic metres of rock with maximum power 0.28-second bursts. This would be consistent with the NDF theory but there is no such thing as "explosive uncoupling" of rock due to direct energy transfer. If we assume (as many do) that the term "explosive uncoupling" actually means vaporization, then hand phasers would need to transfer more than 9 TJ of energy into the rock, in just 0.28 seconds. The resulting power output estimate is 32 TW! The problem with this is threefold:

The battery storage capacity of a Type III phaser (also known as a phaser rifle, which is the most powerful hand-held weapon carried aboard Federation starships) is supposedly 67.5 TJ, so a phaser rifle would be capable of firing on full-power for only two seconds if its power output were this large.
It is most likely that both the phaser shot energy and cell capacity are actually much lower than this. A phaser on overload releases an amount of energy which is greater than one full-power shot, but if one full-power shot is 9 TJ, then a phaser overload should be a 2 kiloton nuclear-yield explosion! We've seen phaser overloads before, and they did not exhibit any of the fireball or shockwave effects of a low-yield nuclear weapon.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction force corresponding to a 32 TW energy discharge is more than 100,000 N! If a human being somehow held onto a weapon sustaining a reaction force of 100,000 N, not only would it instantly shatter every bone in his hand and dislocate his arm, but it would accelerate his entire body backwards at more than 125 g's! This would be fatal, as the human brain will be crushed against the inside of the human skull long before accelerations of that magnitude are reached.

Therefore, we can see that if hand phasers operated on direct energy-transfer principles, they would easily kill their users. The inevitable counter-argument is that the phasers incorporate technology for counteracting the reaction force, but the only way to do such a thing is to discharge massive energy or a highly energetic stream of particles out of the back of the phaser. This would simply kill the user in a different manner, and there is absolutely no mention of any such countermeasure in the TM. Again, the direct energy-transfer theory fails to explain known phenomena while the NDF theory succeeds.

Phaser Stun Settings

At low power levels, phasers can stun a human being into unconsciousness without causing significant physical damage (we have seen that they can cause localized burn effects and even death if fired at the cranium from close range, but at long range the damage is easily repairable). However, there is no known method for making a direct energy-transfer weapon that stuns a human being without causing enough physical damage to kill him as well. This is yet another example of the dismal failure of the direct energy-transfer theory to explain known phenomena, while the NDF theory is not so limited.

Collateral Damage

Direct energy transfer weapons (lasers, kinetic energy weapons, plasma weapons, chemical explosive weapons, etc) release their energy in an indiscriminate manner. Collateral damage is always part of the equation, yet phasers never do any collateral damage whatsoever, to the ground under the victim's feet or any bystanders. However, when they are set to a high power level, they completely disintegrate the victim's body! This is yet another example of the failure of the direct energy-transfer theory and the success of the NDF theory.

Heat and Pressure Waves

When a human body is vaporized by a phaser blast, there is no heat wave. No pressure wave. No blast of wind, or cloud of gas. In short, there are no waste products whatsoever, yet Conservation of Energy demands that there be waste products and heat. The only way to circumvent this problem is to postulate that the matter transformed into neutrinos or some other miniscule particle that can pass harmlessly and unnoticeably through matter. However, the only way to do this with normal energy transfer is to heat the matter up to a trillion degrees so that it "melts" into quarks, and such a massive energy release would not only cause some collateral damage, it would cause massive collateral damage, equivalent to a large-scale nuclear strike involving hundreds of warheads. Obviously, this isn't happening every time someone is vaporized on the show, and it certainly wouldn't mitigate the lack of a pressure or heat wave! Again, we see how the direct energy transfer theory fails while the NDF theory succeeds.

Material sensitivity

In "Devil in the Dark", hand phasers were shown to be ineffective at their default settings against a silicon-based life form. Although this is consistent with the NDF theory, it is totally inconsistent with the direct energy-transfer theory. Silicon-based materials do not necessarily have higher specific heat capacities than carbon-based materials; in many cases the heat capacities and melting points of carbon-based materials are actually higher. As if it needed to be said, we have yet another example of how the direct energy transfer theory fails to explain known phenomena while the NDF theory succeeds.

Non-Linearity

The TM clearly describes the destructive capabilities of hand phasers, but the destructive effect described in the TM is a non-linear exponentially increasing effect. In other words, when you double the energy (in "discharge units"), you get more than double the destruction. This doesn't fit with the direct energy transfer theory but it does fit with the NDF theory.

[NecronLord]

Did you read the page you linked to?

The Mechanism: To explain the behaviour of phasers, we theory that phasers must fire special "phaser particles". These particles apparently disintegrate atoms into a shower of neutrinos. A small portion of the mass must transform into new phaser particles (probably with slightly less energy than the original phaser particle, since the chain reactions don't go on indefinitely). Low-energy phaser particles seem to have very different effects from high-energy phaser particles: below the "nuclear disruption force" threshold, they seem to be capable of causing a variety of effects ranging from simple heating to electrical shock effects. The particles must have mass because phaser beams are known to propagate at distinctly sublight speeds in certain situations (particularly hand phaser beams), and they appear to be very short-lived, hence their apparent inability to propagate through gases (where the large inter-atomic spacing apparently causes enough of a delay to prevent continuation of the NDF chain reaction), or across the gaps between a victim's shoes and the ground. This suggests that a phaser beam incorporates some sort of containment or suspension field to keep the particles from decaying- perhaps it is this field (possibly related to subspace?) which accounts for the ability of phasers to be effective against shields in spite of the absence of matter for the NDF reaction.

Emphasis mine.

[NecronLord]

BabelHauer, you're doing something a lot of newbies (I know you aren't new, but you haven't been very active in the community either) do, reading the main site, and thinking you know the state of the art for both series. The site is old, now. It's not been substantially updated since 2005, more than a decade ago. I have lived a third of my life since the main site was updated!

It misses out entire resests of both series continuity an the vast majority of Star Wars canon material. For instance in the new Trek, the only weapon capable of disintegration if Khan's massive gun, and even then it's more likely it just bisected the klingon it hit, and that the body fell in two pieces. There are only two setting on the new Trek phases, and they require different emitters.

Similarly, there have been major changes in Star Wars, for instance the Clone Wars and Rebels have essentially confirmed that Star Wars shields have the slow blade penetrates the shield weakness; in the last star wars broadcast, Mandalorian commandos fly past an Interdictor, jump down with their jetpacks, land on the outer hull and destroy it with blasters and backpack rockets - the ship is obliterated!.

No one doubts that the classic Star Wars vs Star Trek scenarios are imperial victories, but the state of the art is a lot narrower than once it was, as we know more Imperial weaknesses now, and the new Trek is actually a little stronger (Faster FTL, for instance) - but not enough to put things in doubt.

We still, as with this thread, talk about old trek a lot, because there's more material to discuss, but it's still pertinent.

Likewise we have no real contact with rabid trekkies here - they're still out there - any more, which means that a lot of people's ardour has cooled. Which means we're less inclined to take at face value claims such as 'blasters cannot be adapted to because they have no frequencies.'

You don't need to come along and try and use the decade-outdated main site to correct people like Simon, Q99 and I. We know what's on it, we also know where it still holds true and where it doesn't.

We know about NDF; but we don't automatically assume NDF is a sign of inferiority, it is after all, a very effective device for making your foeman dead.

[Q99]

Yea, it's like, I've not only read the main site (and mentioned those parts specifically) but also referenced the source material behind it.

I mean, again, the show gives us direct power numbers and visual examples of direct energy transfer examples, and the Technical Manual actually gives us the ratios of the effects. I'm capable of going into more detail on what the main site cited there (which isn't contradicting it, just going into more depth on the conventional effects of phasers, as well as further establishing that, yes, NDF involves energy transfer).

[BabelHuber]

We know about NDF; but we don't automatically assume NDF is a sign of inferiority, it is after all, a very effective device for making your foeman dead.

I haven't stated that phasers are bad weapons, just that they have a range of limitations which are still valid - as long as we don't talk about Nu Trek.

Also, I have also agreed with you that the characteristics of SW blasters have changed since the main site has been updated.

I just don't agree with the high power output you and Q99 seem to attribute to phasers, I think that the overwhelming effects of phasers originate from the NDF effect. Evidence for this are e.g. the explosions which are caused by phasers on overload - this rather reminds me on exploding hand grenades.

Also, I just can't buy into the theory that phasers are "underutilized" by officers who have received years of training at Starfleet Academy and on top of it are battle-hardened combat veterans. This just doesn't make sense, I think.

[Batman]

We have fucking seen phasers do the stuff you claim they cannot do else they would do in crate hiding situations. 1.05MJ is canon.
NDF is used to explain all the stuff phasers and associated technobabble weapons do that are impossible regardless of firepower.
Also, a Cardassian phaser was on DS9 claimed to have a power capacity of 4.7MJ. Assuming Federation phasers aren't massively better (and there's no reason to assume they are), that's not quite 4.5 seconds of continuous fire. Maybe they don't like the idea of emptying their 'magazine' to get rid of the cover only to left with little or nothing to shoot at the enemy afterwards (as has repeatedly been suggested in this thread).

[Q99]

I haven't stated that phasers are bad weapons, just that they have a range of limitations which are still valid - as long as we don't talk about Nu Trek.

Also, I have also agreed with you that the characteristics of SW blasters have changed since the main site has been updated.

I just don't agree with the high power output you and Q99 seem to attribute to phasers, I think that the overwhelming effects of phasers originate from the NDF effect. Evidence for this are e.g. the explosions which are caused by phasers on overload - this rather reminds me on exploding hand grenades.

Babel, we have given you both on-screen examples of the damage caused and quotes of people citing the damage as well as technical manual info on the power usage. It's not just what we're attributing to, it's what the show outright demonstrates.

You are making the assumption that NDF effects don't involve significant energy and you have not backed this up.

Heck, this also originated because of how you'd thought they'd interact with shields and thinking their 'lack of power' is why they had a problem with drone shields- but in ship battles, Phasers are viewed as just a viable a weapon against shields as photons, phasers don't have a problem with shields.

NDF does not mean 'little energy is used to make these effects,' it means 'this energy causes matter to act really funky and dissolve.'

Also, I just can't buy into the theory that phasers are "underutilized" by officers who have received years of training at Starfleet Academy and on top of it are battle-hardened combat veterans. This just doesn't make sense, I think.

You need to reconcile with the fact these usages have been seen onscreen.

Multiple possible explanations have been provided. Ammo usage is a pretty logical one like Batman mentioned (and it is true we've never seen someone use the higher functions and then get into an extended firefight after), as is the matter that it requires you to hold the beam on target and thus arguably opens you to return fire, but at the end of the day, what is completely out of the picture is the possibility these usages don't exist, because we have seen them used on-screen, and we also see the usage of normal-shots over cover removal even when the cover is simple rock, a known-eraseable substance, so it's not a 'packing crate' issue either.

If what you think 'doesn't makes sense' clashes with what's on screen, you've got to accept you're wrong, period.

[BabelHuber]

Babel, we have given you both on-screen examples of the damage caused and quotes of people citing the damage

I have never disputed this. I just have stated that there are other examples, like:

- A phaser shot hitting a wall and not damaging the wall, not even a scorch mark
- Guys taking cover behind packing crates
- Phasers on overload which don't seem to releaso 1MJ of energy

These are also on-screen examples which contradict what you claim and you have to give an explanation for them, too.

See, you can't simply say "1.05MJ is canon, period". You have to check all the evidence and come up with an explanation for all of them. You can have an outliner, or an entry in the TM which is contradicted by the show (and hence is wrong) or a person talking bullshit.

Your theory is that they are "underutilizing" their phasers. This is no contradiction to what we see, so yes, it is a possible explanation. I never disputed this.

You are making the assumption that NDF effects don't involve significant energy and you have not backed this up.

- A phaser shot hitting a wall and not damaging the wall, not even a scorch mark
- Guys taking cover behind packing crates
- Phasers on overload which don't seem to releaso 1MJ of energy

Multiple possible explanations have been provided. Ammo usage is a pretty logical one like Batman mentioned (and it is true we've never seen someone use the higher functions and then get into an extended firefight after)

In the 17th century, cuirassiers found a way to get around the limitations of their hand weapons by simply carrying 2 or 3 with them.

And this is exactly the problem I have with your "explanations": If one phaser really is too weak to be effective in certain situations, simply carry 2 with you. They aren't big and they don't seem to be heavy, so why not?

Or, alternatively, outfit the phaser with fucking exchangable energy clips we do see used in phaser rifles. Or use phaser rifles in the first place and carry some clips with you, just in case you need a little bit more energy.

So perhaps you get my point now: It's not that your theory doesn't fit to the facts - it does. It just requires the Federation to be too stupid to utilize the weapons at their disposal in an effective way.

You seem to think that this is realistic. I see this as a weak point, because Battle-hardened officers with years of training shouldn't have this problem. They should have thought "gee, last time having only one phaser at hand was quite a disadvantage. Perhaps I should carry 2 with me next time, or generally use phaser rifles instead. I think I should talk with my superiours about this, so we won't get into such a situation again"

Hence I think an alternative - and better - explanation is that the officers are competent, but their phasers aren't capable enough to do more in these situations. Instead, hand phaserss have severe limitation depending on the material of which the target is made of.

But I don't think we ever will agree, so we can as well agree to disagrea

[Q99]

I have never disputed this. I just have stated that there are other examples, like:

- A phaser shot hitting a wall and not damaging the wall, not even a scorch mark
- Guys taking cover behind packing crates
- Phasers on overload which don't seem to releaso 1MJ of energy

None of which support your claims for reasons that have been heavily explained to you.

The lack of a scorch mark on one occasion doesn't change that there's scorch marks and far more with regularity.

The packing crates... Batman and I just went over that, and so have other posters, from multiple angles in depth.

Overlord, both depends on how the overload works and the charge of the particular phaser at the time (the ones in the out-of-phase episode, for example, had been used to shoot up tons of stuff first).

Are you even reading to what other people are saying?

These are also on-screen examples which contradict what you claim and you have to give an explanation for them, too.

No, a low-end example does not contradict the existence of high-end examples. Especially on a weapon with variable settings.

Yes, I have explained them, repeatedly. You don't like these explanations, but who cares? You're arguing your feelings on what they should do over what has been shown.

You are arguing that something only happening some of the time means impossibility- on a weapon that notably has multiple levels.


That is not how proof works, "But low-end examples exist," is a non-argument when high-end examples exist and are shown regularly, supported in visuals, dialog, and background information.

See, you can't simply say "1.05MJ is canon, period". You have to check all the evidence and come up with an explanation for all of them. You can have an outliner, or an entry in the TM which is contradicted by the show (and hence is wrong) or a person talking bullshit.

You can have outliers. However, 1.05MJ is not only a canon verbal statement from the show, supported by multiple other verbal statements from the show, but I've posted videos with a large number of instances of high damage, and the TM entry is an entire third thing which supports that in addition.

You cannot have a dozen plus instances and something being in visuals across 4 shows, dialog, and background TM material, and dismiss it as an outlier.

Your theory is that they are "underutilizing" their phasers. This is no contradiction to what we see, so yes, it is a possible explanation. I never disputed this.

However, you then said that your explanation, which is contradicted outright and does not explain what we see, is what you believe to be right, and continue to press this. You've presented no new information in some time and have acted as if you are not reading our arguments.

Simply repeating to try and wear people down is bad-faith arguing.

Hence I think an alternative - and better - explanation is that the officers are competent, but their phasers aren't capable enough to do more in these situations. Instead, hand phaserss have severe limitation depending on the material of which the target is made of.

Contradicted by phasers being used against thick metal bank vaults- shown. Ship wall material- shown. And them having this behavior also demonstrated on known-NDF-able materials when used as cover.

This has been pointed out to you repeatedly. Your 'better' argument relies on ignoring on-screen examples that have been shown to you.

I have, seriously, tried to explain this to you about a half-dozen times and you're acting like you have no knowledge of my statements.

In the 17th century, cuirassiers found a way to get around the limitations of their hand weapons by simply carrying 2 or 3 with them.

And this is exactly the problem I have with your "explanations": If one phaser really is too weak to be effective in certain situations, simply carry 2 with you. They aren't big and they don't seem to be heavy, so why not?

You are arguing 'doctrine choices beat physical shown capabilities and prove they don't have those shown capabilities.'

Consider how silly that is for a moment.


You have a conundrum, 'why do they do this?'. Try answering it in a way that doesn't contradict proven capabilities, rather than insisting on shown non-outlier capabilities not existing.

I mean, if you'd read, you'll note I've provided multiple possible explanations aside from ammo capacity, and I even repeated them. But I do not think you've been reading or you'd know this.

But I don't think we ever will agree, so we can as well agree to disagrea

Let's put it this way: Your way is contradicted by canon and seems to involve bad-faith ignoring of arguments.

You've lost some respect from me. This isn't merely a difference in views, your approach shown to me says you are willing to ignore evidence and what other posters argue.

[NecronLord]

Your theory is that they are "underutilizing" their phasers. This is no contradiction to what we see, so yes, it is a possible explanation. I never disputed this.

[BabelHuber]

None of which support your claims for reasons that have been heavily explained to you.

Except that I don't claim, I'm analyzing the evidence at hand.

The lack of a scorch mark on one occasion doesn't change that there's scorch marks and far more with regularity.

Proof that it's "far more regular"

The packing crates... Batman and I just went over that, and so have other posters, from multiple angles in depth.

Yes, but with bullshit like:

"They don't have enough energy in their phasers", while in real life they could just carry two of them or use a phaser rifle

"They stand at the outer wall of the ship, so low energy settings have to be used" without any shred of evidence

"The packing crates carry hazardous materials" without any shred of evidence

Overlord, both depends on how the overload works and the charge of the particular phaser at the time (the ones in the out-of-phase episode, for example, had been used to shoot up tons of stuff first).

So each and every phaser on overload which explodes in the show is a special case? We don't see a regular case once? Right!

These are also on-screen examples which contradict what you claim and you have to give an explanation for them, too.

I did. Phasers behave differently based on the material they hit.

No, a low-end example does not contradict the existence of high-end examples. Especially on a weapon with variable settings.

Except if a different setting would be an advantage and the weapon is handled by a trained solder who should know better

Yes, I have explained them, repeatedly. You don't like these explanations, but who cares? You're arguing your feelings on what they should do over what has been shown.

Except that you have no evicence, you just think Federation officers are too stupid to handle the weapons they are trained on or provide explanations you cannot back up.

You are arguing that something only happening some of the time means impossibility- on a weapon that notably has multiple levels.

See above - why would a trained soldier not use settings which better fit to the situation?

That is not how proof works, "But low-end examples exist," is a non-argument when high-end examples exist and are shown regularly, supported in visuals, dialog, and background information.

`

Except that you wave away the low-end examples by simply assuming that the user is stupid or provide explanations you cannot back up.

You can have outliers. However, 1.05MJ is not only a canon verbal statement from the show, supported by multiple other verbal statements from the show, but I've posted videos with a large number of instances of high damage, and the TM entry is an entire third thing which supports that in addition.

The TM contains many mistakes, like confusing power and energy.

You cannot have a dozen plus instances and something being in visuals across 4 shows, dialog, and background TM material, and dismiss it as an outlier.

Show me where I have done this.

However, you then said that your explanation, which is contradicted outright and does not explain what we see, is what you believe to be right, and continue to press this. You've presented no new information in some time and have acted as if you are not reading our arguments.

Blabla. I have merely interpreted evidence differently, while you simply assume stupidity in every case where your theory doesn't fit to what we see on screen - or come up with stuff you cannot back up.

Simply repeating to try and wear people down is bad-faith arguing.

Yes, it is.

Contradicted by phasers being used against thick metal bank vaults- shown. Ship wall material- shown. And them having this behavior also demonstrated on known-NDF-able materials when used as cover.

The show repeatedly contradicts itself, Einstein. We simply try to find explanations which don't rely on out-of-universe explanations.

This has been pointed out to you repeatedly. Your 'better' argument relies on ignoring on-screen examples that have been shown to you.

No, I don't ignore on-screen examples. I say that phasers behave differently based on the material they hit.

I have, seriously, tried to explain this to you about a half-dozen times and you're acting like you have no knowledge of my statements.

Yes, by assuming that the user of the phaser is stupid whenever the on-screen evidence doesn't fit to your theory, or by coming up with explanations which aren't backed up on screen.

You are arguing 'doctrine choices beat physical shown capabilities and prove they don't have those shown capabilities.'

Consider how silly that is for a moment.

So simply carrying an additional weapon is "doctrine" now? Since when?

You have a conundrum, 'why do they do this?'. Try answering it in a way that doesn't contradict proven capabilities, rather than insisting on shown non-outlier capabilities not existing.

I mean, if you'd read, you'll note I've provided multiple possible explanations aside from ammo capacity, and I even repeated them. But I do not think you've been reading or you'd know this.

Let's put it this way: Your way is contradicted by canon and seems to involve bad-faith ignoring of arguments.

You really don't get it: If e.g. people regularly take cover behind packing crates, the most simple explanation for this behaviour is that phasers cannot penetrate these crates.

This is occams razor in its purest form. Your "explanations" are introducing additional variables (energy capacity of phasers, people being in front of outer walls etc.) for which you cannot provide any evidence.

You've lost some respect from me. This isn't merely a difference in views, your approach shown to me says you are willing to ignore evidence and what other posters argue.

With bullshit like this, you don't exactly raise my respect in you either.

[Q99]

Show me where I have done this.

You repeatedly keep saying "It can't do this." I, NecronLord, and others, have shown clips contradicting that. Last post of page 10, Necronlord posted this, and on page 11 responded to you ignoring it with "Did you miss the guy scorched to a charred corpse on the former page?"

I posted this and this and this, heavily demonstrating effects both disintegration and non in nature, showing explosive and thermal.

I noted that they use rocks as cover at times, like in the Siege of AR-558, and that's a known-NFDable substance.

You also continually acted like I and others were arguing against NDF rather than 'there's NDF with an energy component' until it was explained to you repeatedly.

You continued to act as though 'if they don't do something, it must be physically impossible,' only admitting underutilizing is a possibility in the post that Necronlord responded to with 'concession accepted'.

A practice I'm not too fond of, but I must admit it's apt here.

See above - why would a trained soldier not use settings which better fit to the situation?

I have literally provided you with multiple possible explanations. Including 'it requires keeping the beam on target longer, leaving one vulnerable' (see the quick shots in AR-558 compared to how long it normally disintegrates stuff which is normally closer to a full second's beam) to, on ships and stations and areas with collapseable ceilings safety, to ammo.

I also pointed out, on 2 separate occasions, they are known to underutilize elsewhere in wide beam. You didn't address it either time while still pursuing the argument that underutilization isn't happening.

Ignoring arguments is bad arguing.

You asked me to show you where you have ignored arguments? Ok, I have just given you links to six pieces of direct evidence, visuals and clips, you have ignored, as well as 4 specific posts where you were told things that were ignored.

With bullshit like this, you don't exactly raise my respect in you either.

I get that you might not like people disrespecting other's arguments, but you are ignoring other people's arguments, this has been demonstrated to be the case, it doesn't make your arguments stronger, it just means you're ignoring what other people say.

You need to sit down and shape up or no-one's really going to care what you think about our arguments.

[seanrobertson]

I would like actual examples of characters using packing crates for cover. It does happen, but I see a lot of innuendo and little if any math in this thread to prove crates are shit (to say nothing of how tangential packing crates are to the issue at hand: Borg drones' shield resilience).

I watched "Sacrifice of Angels" last night. Toward the end, Rom and Kira come under fire from a half-dozen or so Jem'Hadar. The run down a corridor as an energy weapon strikes a crate (note the bright flash and sparks).



They round a corner, enter a cargo bay and, sure enough, we see them take cover ...



That's more than a crate or two they're hiding behind; it's a couple cubic meters of material or more. I mean ...



... Kira could easily fit in the one barrel she's leaning against, for God's sake.

Further ...


Yet again, we see a white-hot flash when nearby barrels and crates are hit, which suggests they are made of metal; and even if some weren't made of metal, they could still be filled with a variety of things.

Conclusion: in this example, given the volume and likely composition of the barrels and crates tightly packed (ha!) together, even if we assumed phaser or like weapons couldn't swiftly remove that cover, frankly, so what?

That would certainly not invalidate the megawatt hand phaser output from "The Mind's Eye" or perhaps even higher phase pistol output -- to which the Borg adapted, I might reiterate -- demonstrated in "Regeneration.". ALL it really establishes is Jem'Hadar carbines are ill-suited to blasting away aforesaid stuff in tens of seconds*.

*Yes, seconds, because Kira and Rom were almost instantly rescued by Odo and his security force. People tend to forget that in these discussions, acting as if these crates invariably turn Trek firefights into some kind of drawn-out ordeal.

[Q99]

Also, another matter- there's more crates and barrels around.

Let's say you NDF-away one. Is Kira now in the open? No! She simply moves to the next one! You'd probably have to NDF-away a couple tons of material before that's an open room (which I don't think multiple phasers have enough charge for even if you carried more than one), all of which is time Kira has to shoot back, move, yadda yadda.

Additionally- whatever setting they are using is making showers of sparks, which is probably more dangerous and disruptive (certainly makes things visually more difficult for Kira's return fire) than being near the NDF effect is.

If someone was simply behind a single barrel or crate? Sure, then that'd be a good time to ask 'why don't they simply disintegrate it?'. To my knowledge, that has never been the case, it's always been a room full of stuff.

This is simply Babel insisting his view on how things *should* be is the only 'logical' way, without properly backing it up.

[NecronLord]

Also, Jem'hadar guns are not phasers, they're plasma guns - just like blasters in many sources.

We never see them NDF anything, they actually are a DET weapon - though somehow they have an anti-coagulant function but that's about their only exotic function.

[seanrobertson]

Also, another matter- there's more crates and barrels around.

Heh, I thought about mentioning that. It's very clear in the second image I posted. As you say, we don't see folks simply cowering behind one human-sized barrelful of tullaberry wine (or those self-sealing stem bolts we heard so much about ). But even if we did, it's intellectually lazy to scoff, "Packing crate?! PSH" without taking an actual look at the bloody thing. Consider the weight of a container which broke Worf's back in Ethics.



It doesn't look much bigger than the silver-colored drums Kira stood behind.

[Crazedwraith]

Also, Jem'hadar guns are not phasers, they're plasma guns - just like blasters in many sources.

We never see them NDF anything, they actually are a DET weapon - though somehow they have an anti-coagulant function but that's about their only exotic function.

We do see them NDF things. They disappear people in 'In Purgatory's Shadow'/'By Inferno's Light'. Very noticeable in the escape scenes.

Perhaps the Dominion has multiple types of energy weapons in the same casings. Or of course the guns have multiple settings despite the lore saying otherwise.

[NecronLord]

I stand corrected, then.

I remember reading that they intended the dominion rifle to be 'simple but effective' and called it a plasma gun because of that, but now you mention that episode I do recall the disintegrations.

(or those self-sealing stem bolts we heard so much about ).

Who would disintegrate the stem bolts? They're always in short supply.

[Q99]

Memory Alpha calls them plasma rifles (with the note that they're said to fire 'disruptor blasts' as well, both on-screen quotes), but they also have additional, noteworthy funky effects aside from the NDF stuff.

At least three settings exist (they can stun, they can disintegrate, and they can kill without doing either), and on their default 'kill' setting they have an anti-coagulant effect so that if the target doesn't die immediately, they bleed out.

How you get an anti-coagulant effect on an energy weapon, I have no idea

Heh, I thought about mentioning that. It's very clear in the second image I posted. As you say, we don't see folks simply cowering behind one human-sized barrelful of tullaberry wine (or those self-sealing stem bolts we heard so much about ). But even if we did, it's intellectually lazy to scoff, "Packing crate?! PSH" without taking an actual look at the bloody thing. Consider the weight of a container which broke Worf's back in Ethics.

Intellectually lazy, absolutely critical to Babel's argument, and brought up last page as well ^^

*Puts another check box of 'arguments Babel skipped over' *

[DarthPooky]

So to get back to the subject at hand. I'm still wondering how much would it take for a star wars blaster like the E-11 to bring down a drones shield and for that matter how much would it take for a Phaser to do that as well.

[Q99]

So to get back to the subject at hand. I'm still wondering how much would it take for a star wars blaster like the E-11 to bring down a drones shield and for that matter how much would it take for a Phaser to do that as well.

It's really hard to say because Enterprise is the only time we've seen the personal shields overwhelmed by 'more power,' and then only temporarily so to that extent it could be adapted to as well.

After hundreds and hundreds of examples and changes to adapt, the personal shields will get pretty darn optimized.

Obviously there's going to be some limit, drones simply can't have too huge of a power supply and peak power, but it's very hard to get an estimate with such limited information.

[Lord Revan]

How you get an anti-coagulant effect on an energy weapon, I have no idea

it's possible that they fire plasma bolts that have disruptor style effect on target at high settings but on low settings they have anti-coagulant effects (either due what the plasma is made of or some other reasons) but I'm speculating here.