Resource War

[Lord Revan]

You do realize that "can signifigantly harm an NX-class" makes that beam no more powerful then the main phaser batteries of the Constitution class as we know a connie can essentially mission kill an NX-class (well technically the mirror universe version) with 1 volley.

[KraytKing]

So, instead of 60 turbolasers using Tibanna gas, I have 60 Phaser Cannons, each as powerful as the Enterprise-D's 'Deflector' Cannon from Best of Both Worlds. Either way, I'm still popping enemy starships.

I assume you are still using the old EU biggaton numbers?

Yes. It has been confirmed many times, by myself and others, that this thread uses the biggaton calcs.

and do so from millions of km away

Now, I don't know enough about Trek to challenge the firepower calc you've made, but I do know this: in Incredible Cross-Sections, it is stated that a Venator-class Star Destroyer has a range of multiple light-minutes (I think it says twelve, but I may be mistaken). Whether one minute or ten, it has equivalent or greater range than the Mars weapon, according to the quote above. By the time of this thread, the Venator is two decades and a war out of date. For reference, that's roughly similar to us comparing landships to Panzer IIs, or biplanes to Spitfires. There is no reason to expect technology to have regressed in that time, and indeed it may have advanced considerably.

Also, holy fuck do you have a thing for necro. This subject is six months old! Let it die!

Edit: I recognize the irony of my last statement. I couldn't resist thrashing an idiot. I'm sorry.

[Khaat]

So, instead of 60 turbolasers using Tibanna gas, I have 60 Phaser Cannons, each as powerful as the Enterprise-D's 'Deflector' Cannon from Best of Both Worlds. Either way, I'm still popping enemy starships.

I have issue with the idea that phaser cannons could operate with [insert higher numbers here] power run through them, though. The BoBW deflector weaponization caused significant damage to the E-D's deflector array hardware. Is your basis that a phaser cannon's hardware could take as much power as you want to give it? Is there a source for the hardware limit mentioned anywhere? (Honest questions, I never watched DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise.)

Tibanna gas being "Bespin only" is patently stupid:

LANDO: So you see, since we're a small operation, we don't fall into the... uh... jurisdiction of the Empire.
LEIA: So you're part of the mining guild then?
LANDO: No, not actually. Our operation is small enough not to be noticed... which is advantageous for everybody since our customers are anxious to avoid attracting attention to themselves.
*The group walks into another corridor and heads for a huge doorway at the far end.*
HAN: Aren't you afraid the Empire's going to find out about this little operation and shut you down?
LANDO: That's always been a danger looming like a shadow over everything we've built here. But things have developed that will insure security.
I've just made a deal that will keep the Empire out of here forever.

If tibanna gas was "Bespin only" everyone (with a blaster) in the galaxy would know about them.

[KraytKing]

Tibanna gas being "Bespin only" is patently stupid:

I agree completely. Any resource used in warfare on the scale of Star Wars has to have multiple sources. Unfortunately, the writers of the EU seem to have a boner for single-source resources. Apparently bacta is only made on a single planet, and hypermatter is a resource created by an accidental series of unlikely cosmic events. Fucking stupid. As I've said many times, the editing teams should include a panel of nerds. Preferably with me on it.

[texanmarauder]

and do so from millions of km away

Now, I don't know enough about Trek to challenge the firepower calc you've made, but I do know this: in Incredible Cross-Sections, it is stated that a Venator-class Star Destroyer has a range of multiple light-minutes (I think it says twelve, but I may be mistaken). Whether one minute or ten, it has equivalent or greater range than the Mars weapon, according to the quote above. By the time of this thread, the Venator is two decades and a war out of date. For reference, that's roughly similar to us comparing landships to Panzer IIs, or biplanes to Spitfires. There is no reason to expect technology to have regressed in that time, and indeed it may have advanced considerably.

it was 10. and 10 light minutes is almost 180 million kilometers. the average distance between earth and mars is 225 million km. one reason I have never agreed with those kind of ranges for turbolasers is because its too easy to miss, especially using STL weapons. that's probably why star trek came up with verteron particles, which must be at least as fast as light in order to do what they did.

Also, holy fuck do you have a thing for necro. This subject is six months old! Let it die!

there aren't exactly a lot of threads on the versus stuff that aren't several months old at the very least. and that's just from the last post. not the start date.

[texanmarauder]

You do realize that "can signifigantly harm an NX-class" makes that beam no more powerful then the main phaser batteries of the Constitution class as we know a connie can essentially mission kill an NX-class (well technically the mirror universe version) with 1 volley.

actually, it was two volleys. the first destroyed the impulse engine, the second targeted the reactor. and the main phasers on a connie don't have the power or range to go from earth to mars and still do damage. [edit. to clarify, I was referring to the moon, where it did a demo shot] the verteron array not only had the pinpoint precision aiming, but did so from mars and still managed to do significant damage. not only that, but do you realize how much power it would take to completely vaporize a ship like that and leave no debris? hell, do you realize the precision it would take to target a ~100m sized saucer with a huge space gun? or a building on a planet from 225ish million kms away?

[texanmarauder]

so I'm guessing that you are reducing the EU to just the ICS calcs and nothing else in the EU?

[Khaat]

that's probably why star trek came up with verteron particles, which must be at least as fast as light in order to do what they did.

Yep, Memory Alpha indicates the Mars array was originally to be a giant laser, but that would take too long on-screen:

According the the DVD audio commentary for "Terra Prime", the writers originally envisioned the verteron array to simply be a very powerful laser beam. They soon realized, however, that a laser beam would not be able to reach the targets depicted in the episode in such a short amount of time, since a laser beam would be limited by the speed of light. For this reason, they decided to use verterons, which are fictional particles.

I guess it would be silly for the NXEnterprise to go to Mars to investigate and get shot at there?

[texanmarauder]

also, according to the show, the verteron array can be fired on any ship in the system. translation, they have their own "superlaser" with a range of over 100 billion kms.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Which begs several questions:

1. Why aren't verteron weapons present on starships?
2. Why did the verteron array not fire on the Narada?
3. Why did the verteron array not fire on the Borg in either of their incursions at Earth?
4. Why aren't there more of these arrays/weapons based on or around Earth, Vulcan, Andor etc? Why aren't they adapted for static defence of starbases, DS9 etc?

In other words, if this array makes such an effective weapon system, why does it only appear once?

Your assertion that its a Trek superlaser is, I think, specious. "Can be fired on any ship in the system" is a very broad statement, and I would point out that "can be fired at" is not the same as "can accurately hit and cause damage." I can fire one of my air rifles at a target a hundred yards away, doesn't mean I can actually hit it.

[texanmarauder]

Which begs several questions:

1. Why aren't verteron weapons present on starships?
2. Why did the verteron array not fire on the Narada?
3. Why did the verteron array not fire on the Borg in either of their incursions at Earth?
4. Why aren't there more of these arrays/weapons based on or around Earth, Vulcan, Andor etc? Why aren't they adapted for static defence of starbases, DS9 etc?

In other words, if this array makes such an effective weapon system, why does it only appear once?

Your assertion that its a Trek superlaser is, I think, specious. "Can be fired on any ship in the system" is a very broad statement, and I would point out that "can be fired at" is not the same as "can accurately hit and cause damage." I can fire one of my air rifles at a target a hundred yards away, doesn't mean I can actually hit it.

those are questions that can be posed about many things in both franchises. for example the ion torpedoes that are only seen in R1 and never seen again, even though they are able to effectively disable an IDS in a few hits. it doesn't negate its existence. and I used the term superlaser because that is the closest analogue to a star wars weapon. not to mention the fact that again, it was able to accurately target the moon and earth from mars. the rest of the solar system isn't exactly a stretch. so its no more specious than turbolasers that are far far below luminal speeds having a range of 10 light minutes.

[Batman]

Earth and the moon are for all practical purposes stationary targets. You could shoot at them with a lead time of 20 million years and you'd still land a hit. A starship...not so much

[Eternal_Freedom]

Earth/Moon from Mars is, as someone earlier pointed out, and average of 225 million km, or 1.5 AU. The rest of the solar system can be up to 40 AU (out to Pluto, off the top of my head). The outer limits are thousands of AU from Mars. You can't say that a jump of 26 times the range (low end, to Pluto at closest approach) to 3 orders of magnitude (outer limits of solar system) is "not exactly a stretch."

And as Batman point out, Earth and the Moon are fixed targets with precisely known orbits and rotations.

Bringing up things like the ion torpedoes from Rogue One doesn't excuse the fact that this potentially epic superweapon turns up once, in an entirely non-military use.

I suppose a reasonable supposition as to why it never appears again is that it's only effective on unshielded targets like comets, Earth's surface or the NX-01.

[texanmarauder]

it sounds more like you are just trying to come up with any excuse in the book to negate the stated range. it was clearly stated that he could fire on any ship in the system. not planet. SHIP. not to mention they fire on comets, which are also much smaller than moons, much less planets.

the fact that it was only used once doesn't mean that it never existed. that's a cop out. seems to be standard procedure on this forum in VS debates.

the reason I brought it up is because weapons like that do exist in the ST universe. so even with the inflated EU numbers, there is the possibility that the ISDs would still be out ranged and heavily outgunned.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It is said. That is not the same as shown. It is said, as a threat by a terrorist leader trying to discourage direct action. That makes the source questionable, and since the claimed range is based solely on this range, the claim is dubious.

Comets may be smaller than planets but, again, they are much bigger than ships, have nice, predictable orbits, make no evasive manouvres, do not attempt to jam or otherwise impede targeting sensors and so on. Hitting a comet across hundreds of millions of km with slow-moving projectiles is perfectly doable now, hell, we did exactly that with the Rosetta probe and comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko a year or so ago.

I am not trying to claim it never existed, and I'll thank you to remember that or prove where I said it. If we only see such a device used once, in a non-military application, then logically there has to be some reason why it isn't used later on. Several options are that it was phased out as obsolete and/or no longer needed or it doesn't work on shielded targets. If the former is true then unless the hypothetical match-up is taking place in the ENT era it doens't make any difference to the outcome, and if it's the latter, well it still doesn't make a difference.

There is a reason the main site, and countless older threads, avoid extrapolating possible performance based on single-appearance, anomalously high-end numbers, because it doesn't represent potential ability anymore than conspicuously low-end examples do.

EDIT: And finally, I would love to see how me pointing out that a 25-1000x extrapolation in range is "not much of a stretch" is my trying every tactic in the book to discredit the example. No sunshine, I'm pointing out the flaws in your argument this time.

[Batman]

it sounds more like you are just trying to come up with any excuse in the book to negate the stated range. it was clearly stated that he could fire on any ship in the system. not planet. SHIP.

Fire on. Not reliably hit.

not to mention they fire on comets, which are also much smaller than moons, much less planets.

And like moons and planets move in extremely predictable ways. Unlike starships.

[Solauren]

So, instead of 60 turbolasers using Tibanna gas, I have 60 Phaser Cannons, each as powerful as the Enterprise-D's 'Deflector' Cannon from Best of Both Worlds. Either way, I'm still popping enemy starships.

I have issue with the idea that phaser cannons could operate with [insert higher numbers here] power run through them, though. The BoBW deflector weaponization caused significant damage to the E-D's deflector array hardware. Is your basis that a phaser cannon's hardware could take as much power as you want to give it? Is there a source for the hardware limit mentioned anywhere? (Honest questions, I never watched DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise.)

In Best of Both Worlds, part 1, they converted the Shield systems to fire an energy beam at a specific frequency range, to damage the Borg cube.
The theory was, it would be massively more powerful then standard phasers. (Phasers were doing 1% damage to the cube, when they actually hurt it).
Obviously, that didn't work, or Riker would have remained Captain.

It wasn't a standard phaser, for sure, but, the principal is the same.

Set up 60 'canons' like that, and bolt them onto a Star Destroyer, feed power from the Hypermatter reactor.

[KraytKing]

In Star Wars, it was once said that Palpatine had a son and he was a Jedi. Some things are mentioned once and are stupid, so we forget them.

Ion torpedoes are not one of these. They were used to great effect in capturing KDY following Endor. They were used in a manner which advanced the story in Rogue One.

Also, do you mind putting all of your information in one post? You're making the thread look more popular than it is.

[seanrobertson]

Earth/Moon from Mars is, as someone earlier pointed out, and average of 225 million km, or 1.5 AU. The rest of the solar system can be up to 40 AU (out to Pluto, off the top of my head). The outer limits are thousands of AU from Mars. You can't say that a jump of 26 times the range (low end, to Pluto at closest approach) to 3 orders of magnitude (outer limits of solar system) is "not exactly a stretch."

And as Batman point out, Earth and the Moon are fixed targets with precisely known orbits and rotations.

Bringing up things like the ion torpedoes from Rogue One doesn't excuse the fact that this potentially epic superweapon turns up once, in an entirely non-military use.

I suppose a reasonable supposition as to why it never appears again is that it's only effective on unshielded targets like comets, Earth's surface or the NX-01.

In all fairness, how would a shielded target be any more resilient than a matter-based target? Comets and Eart-bound targets can get pretty big!

Mind you, I don't really understand how that Verteron Array pertains to the discussion at hand, at least apart from tech that existed before the Federation did. A quater-kiloton Romulan mine heavily damaged the NX-01 in "Minefield," but even when that ship's defenses were at optimal, it seems that weapons imparting hundreds of gigajoules to a few terajoules per hit will pack quite a punch ... not fatal, but enough to steadily erase the polarized hull defenses and destroy the NX piece by piece.

I will also note that I don't support biggaton figures anymore. I am very tired, so I'll leave the particulars of that for another day. Based on the most recent canon, I reckon Trek and Wars ships are roughly competitive on a ton-for-ton basis; e.g., a 5 million ton Galaxy is certainly no match for a 40 million ton ISD, but ten Galaxies? I'd now favor the latter, even if a fair chunk of those Galaxies were badly hurt in the process.

[Khaat]

Set up 60 'canons' like that, and bolt them onto a Star Destroyer, feed power from the Hypermatter reactor.

No, I recognized the source/original attempt, I was wondering if there is anywhere it is suggested that the ST tech (captured, in your example) can actually take the higher power input/output any better than the Ent-D did. I seem to recall the Enterprise-D was crippled with the deflector/weapon's use. If the intent would be 60 effectively one-shot weapons (with downtime to repair each after firing), I could see that. I wouldn't want to rely on that in a fight, however.

[Batman]

I rather thought the idea wasn't so much 'rip existing cannon off Trek ship' than 'build more bigass cannon using Trek technology, then mount that on ISD'

[Batman]

GHETTO EDIT: We KNOW phasers can be built with more oomph than we see from the regularly used ones thanks to the Phaser Lance on the E-D dreadnought in 'All Good Things'.

[Solauren]

I rather thought the idea wasn't so much 'rip existing cannon off Trek ship' than 'build more bigass cannon using Trek technology, then mount that on ISD'

THIS.

Mind you, if I was the Empire, I wouldn't be above knocking out enemy ships, and turning their deflector systems into energy cannons.

You wouldn't even have to crank it up to 'pop a Borg cube in 1 shot'. Just to the maximum safe limit.

Hell, if that wasn't feasible, just cover a Star Destroyer with standard phasers, and feed them power from the Hypermatter Reacto.
You still have Star Wars level shields and speed. 60+ Galaxy Class phasersthat you can fire and near full power without worrying about your power supply is still a massive firepower edge over standard Trek ships. Especially with a Star Destroyers standard shields.

[texanmarauder]

It is said. That is not the same as shown. It is said, as a threat by a terrorist leader trying to discourage direct action. That makes the source questionable, and since the claimed range is based solely on this range, the claim is dubious.

we already know that the weapon can reliably hit a planet ~225 million kilometers away in seconds. it could be more than that since we don't know the exact position of earth in relation to mars at that time. I just used the average. and since the gentleman in question knew the capabilities of the weapon (hence the reason he chose it) it is reasonable that the weapon does indeed have that range.

I am not trying to claim it never existed, and I'll thank you to remember that or prove where I said it. If we only see such a device used once, in a non-military application, then logically there has to be some reason why it isn't used later on. Several options are that it was phased out as obsolete and/or no longer needed or it doesn't work on shielded targets. If the former is true then unless the hypothetical match-up is taking place in the ENT era it doens't make any difference to the outcome, and if it's the latter, well it still doesn't make a difference.

it isn't seen later on for the same reason that ion torpedoes are never seen again in canon. because it was created AFTER the other series had already long ended.

There is a reason the main site, and countless older threads, avoid extrapolating possible performance based on single-appearance, anomalously high-end numbers, because it doesn't represent potential ability anymore than conspicuously low-end examples do.

imma bite my tongue on that one since you probably already know where I stand on that issue.

EDIT: And finally, I would love to see how me pointing out that a 25-1000x extrapolation in range is "not much of a stretch" is my trying every tactic in the book to discredit the example. No sunshine, I'm pointing out the flaws in your argument this time.

its the fact that you dismiss it out of hand based on you not believing the person who said it had that range, even though the terra prime guy would know its abilities. that's not pointing out a flaw. that's Argumentum ad lapidem at its finest. you have no proof that the verteron array doesn't have that range.

[texanmarauder]

it sounds more like you are just trying to come up with any excuse in the book to negate the stated range. it was clearly stated that he could fire on any ship in the system. not planet. SHIP.

Fire on. Not reliably hit.

and what would the point of firing on anything be if you couldn't reliably hit it? I mean seriously? do they have to say " we can fire and reliably hit ships at XXXX million km" instead?