TNG phasers can't be 5.1 MW (NOT a SW/ST weapons debate)

[seanrobertson]

In the TNG episode 'The survivors', when Kevin Uxbridge created the first Husnock warship illusion, it strikes with 40 MW of particle energy. Worf claims there to be 'no damage', and Riker states that 'If that's the best they can do, this will only last 5 minutes'. All round, the crew is genuinely unimpressed with this display of firepower.

Therefore, the particle ship weapons of TNG must be much stronger than the 5.1 MW that the TNG manual states. If the Enterprise can only dish out 5.1 MW of particle energy, then they shouldn't be so unimpressed with the Husnocks' 40 MW of particle energy. Therefore, I would go for an estimate of at least 204 MW of energy (5.1 x 40) and the high end of the estimate rests with whether the 2nd illusion kicked out 400 GW or 400 MW of particle energy, because I frankly can't remember. If 400 MW, there's something seriously wrong with TNG shields, if 400 GW (As the DITL professes, but I don't think that's actually what Worf said - my defective memory... ) then the shields or the hull are much more powerful than we thought.

Thoughts, comments, information anyone?

It was "four hundred gigawatts of particle energy!" It knocked the shields down with one hit, though there was no damage (probably thanks
to the "intervention" of the Douwd).

And no, 5.1 MW for an individual phaser emitter isn't canon; the TMs
themselves aren't canon, so you might as well throw that no. out.
You might also note that the TNG TM mentions that there are 200
collimating emitters in the GCS's dorsal saucer array, meaning a firepower
of roughly 1 gigawatt (1,000 megawatts).

Such is also irrelevant for two reasons: one, "A Matter of Time"; two,
observed phaser effects.

"A Matter of Time" establishes that a mere variance of 60 GW in a
phaser beam could burn off a planet's atmosphere. That's obviously beyond the 1.02 GW possible with 200 collimating saucer dorsal
emitters...

On to two: 6 million gigawatts, let alone 60 GW (which a daisy cutter easily surpasses) would make *zero* difference in whether or not an atmosphere was to be burned off; therefore, phasers are material-dependent weapons. This is corroborated by numerous other episodes and examples therein. Phasers appear to be pretty awesome at totally destroying very light elements, and next to worthless, perhaps limited to somewhere near their initial output, against the very heaviest elements like neutronium (ref: "Think Tank," "The Doomsday Machine").

IMO, the most powerful phasers are usually the equivalent of about 50 TW against typical Star Trek armor, roughly 10-40,000 TW against most shields, and several teratons/sec. (tens of billions of TW) against very light
elements like those you'd find in a planet's crust. This goes even higher
when dealing with the atmosphere of a planet, obviously, for the aforementioned reasons.

But in all relevant contexts, they'll do maybe a light turbolaser or two
worth of damage to a Star Wars shield. That's certainly better than
5 million watts, but it's far from what's needed.

[seanrobertson]

The actual power rating of phasers are irrelevant since they are not DET weapons, so the point is moot, determing their general efficency against targets is prefferable

Precisely

[seanrobertson]

Also, the 200MW weapons are quite likely small weapons, we've determined atleast KT(9-50KT/sec) level firepower from Omega Destroyers

Agreed again. I think B5 weapons are generally *pretty comparable*
to those one might find in Trek. As my Jefe Brian once said,
he figured that:

The Earth Alliance was about on par with the Kirk-era/TOS Trek;
The Centauri and Minbari were about on par with TNG;
and the FO were about on the level of TNG+'s super-baddies.

I think that overall, the B5 races have a no. of advantages that
could make warfare between the two sides very nasty, though
I would have to give Trek the advantage in firepower, defenses,
overall size, etc. by roughly an order of magnitude--generally speaking.
I say overall and generally because I'm not sure if that'd apply where
the Minbari and some of the First Ones are concerned. Some of
the FOs, for instance, are potentially far more powerful than anything
short of Q-type aliens in Trek.

[seanrobertson]

It has to be observed at this point that any claims for photon torpedoes being capable of megaton-range blast yields are directly contraindicated by the canon evidence of the movies and television episodes. One of the most direct examples derives straight from the movie Star Trek III: In Search Of Spock. Commander Kruge's Bird of Prey took a direct hit, while unshielded, from an Enterprise photorp and suffered only minor internal damage. The photorps fired from Gen. Chang's BOP in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country exhibit no greater power —particularly the one which hit the unshielded Enterprise and blew through the saucer section. In either case, the target ship should have vanished in a large nuclear fireball if the weapons in question had megaton-range yields.

Patrick,

A few nitpicks:

Trek III *and* VI are potentially bad examples for high-yield torpedos because both ships were within a few kilometers of each other. Assuming such ships have lesser shielding than TNG counterparts ("Q Who?," "The Nth
Degree"), if indeed *any* shielding whatsoever, it is likely that the
torpedos were low-yield, not armed, or something else--so long as
that "else" isn't "maximum yield."

Furthermore, these examples are anachronistic. TOS-era weapons
are at least an order of magnitude less powerful than their TNG+
counterparts, generally speaking.

Excuse me, but we know no such thing. No episode of TNG or DS9 shows Romulan starships firing the plasma implosion-field weapon from "Balance Of Terror". The range limitation and power drain proved it to be a useless weapon in starship combat. By the time of "The Enterprise Incident", the Romulans had completely abandoned its use in favour of standard disruptors and photorps.

Agreed. Of course, that was the only armament available on the
Romulan D7 cruisers, most likely; and we have heard clues to the
effect that, if nothing else, the Romulans *do* use such weapons
in an anti-starship role ("Images in the Sand"). However, in starship
to starship combat, I can't recall a single verifiable "plasma torpedo"
fired.

In any case, whether the weird physics of that situation forces us to fall back upon exotic chain-reaction theories to explain the event, or we attempt to simply apply standard physical models to the attack upon the Founders' homeworld in TDiC, we still do not see destruction consistent with gigaton-level blasts occuring upon the surface.

In fairness, we didn't see the planet and the results of the attack for
very long at all. And I can only half-agree with the idea that "we don't
see destruction consistent w/ GT-lv. blasts": the blastwaves we see
actually require supersonic blastwaves.

We do not see exposed mantle nor any sort of massive exothermic exchanges or pressure-wave displacements which would significantly disrupt the atmosphere far beyond what is actually seen in the episode in question.

True, but seeing an "exposed mantle" as such doesn't mean we'd see
glowing matter. Somewhere along the line, probably starting with
my friend and dearly departed Cronan Thompson, it became popular
to smear "The Die Is Cast" with the notion that "an exposed mantle
means you see molten material."

BZZZT. Utterly wrong. On Earth, at least, the UPPER mantle is very
much solid. The upper mantle and crust are both considered a part
of the lithosphere. Only the lower mantle, the asthenosphere, is
actually molten. Removing even a significant portion of a planet's
crust through NDF effects wouldn't necessarily expose molten materials.

The fact that the level of destruction did not even disrupt the operation of the transmitter sending up false lifesign sensor signals (which Garak picks up on immediately) to the fleet tells us that something far less than gigaton-level blasts are occurring anywhere on the planet.

Hmm...I dunno. The transceiver could've been on the other hemisphere
of the planet altogether.

The only truly relevant part of the episode is what Col. Lovok says:
"Computer analysis indicates that the planet's crust will be destroyed
within one hour; and the mantle, within five."

5-6 hours is, therefore, spent on removing the solid portion of the planet.
At the least, we could assume it'd kill all life forms, including bacteria.
That's impressive firepower, chain-reaction FX or not. It's too bad
such effects aren't the case against shields, heavy armor, etc.

[Darth Wong]

Patrick,

A few nitpicks:

Trek III *and* VI are potentially bad examples for high-yield torpedos because both ships were within a few kilometers of each other. Assuming such ships have lesser shielding than TNG counterparts ("Q Who?," "The Nth Degree"), if indeed *any* shielding whatsoever, it is likely that the
torpedos were low-yield, not armed, or something else--so long as
that "else" isn't "maximum yield."

I'm not Patrick, but I'd like to point out that while your argument works for ST3 (they were within a few hundred METRES, never mind km), it doesn't work for ST6. The BOP fires its torp at 1:40:00 on the DVD. The torp strikes the E-Nil at 1:40:07 on the DVD. If they are within a few km (say, 5km), this would imply that the torp's average speed is well below 1 km/s, which is simply pathetic.

Let's say a photorp can accelerate at roughly 10 km/s^2 (I know I'm just pulling this number out of a hat, but if you've got a better figure, feel free to substitute it). After 7 seconds of travel, it should cover 245 km. At that range, there should be little or no risk (a 1 megaton explosion would not even injure human skin at that range). Even if it accelerates at only 1 km/s^2, it would cover 24.5 km after 7 seconds, and that's still at the range where a megaton explosion would cause no damage to a modern APC, never mind a supposedly armoured, shielded warship.

Furthermore, these examples are anachronistic. TOS-era weapons
are at least an order of magnitude less powerful than their TNG+
counterparts, generally speaking.

Some "Cult of Connie" Trekkies insist that it's the other way around

In fairness, we didn't see the planet and the results of the attack for very long at all. And I can only half-agree with the idea that "we don't
see destruction consistent w/ GT-lv. blasts": the blastwaves we see
actually require supersonic blastwaves.

Yes, but so what? What are those blastwaves composed of? They're obviously not atmospheric shockwaves (which move at the speed of sound). They might be upper-atmospheric ionization wavefronts, in which case their appearance is not that big of a deal (I refer readers to the aurora borealis, not to mention lightning storms).

Gigaton-class explosions would create persistent, extremely luminescent (we're talking about "surface of the Sun" here) fireballs which last for many tens of seconds. Even a brief glimpse should show us these huge, brilliant fireballs, and it doesn't.

As for the "uber-calcs" implied by actual crust "vapourization" as per Darkling's argument, I trust you recognize that we did not see the massive superheated sub-orbital extra-atmospheric ejecta plumes that should be produced by such an energetic event.

True, but seeing an "exposed mantle" as such doesn't mean we'd see glowing matter. Somewhere along the line, probably starting with
my friend and dearly departed Cronan Thompson, it became popular
to smear "The Die Is Cast" with the notion that "an exposed mantle means you see molten material."

BZZZT. Utterly wrong. On Earth, at least, the UPPER mantle is very
much solid. The upper mantle and crust are both considered a part
of the lithosphere. Only the lower mantle, the asthenosphere, is
actually molten. Removing even a significant portion of a planet's
crust through NDF effects wouldn't necessarily expose molten materials.

Actually, the upper mantle is in a "semi-fluid" state, and it is definitely hot enough to glow visibly. Besides, actual vapourization or melting as per Darkling would produce glowing material regardless of whether it punches through the crust. So we can rule out Darkling's interpretation, and go with mine: they are eating away big chunks of the surface with funky NDF reactions, and they're punching torps underground (perhaps special-purpose torps made specifically for this mission; surely SOMEONE in Trek is capable of realizing that special-purpose ordnance can sometimes make sense, as opposed to the "jack of all trades" philosophy) to cause seismic shockwaves that will collapse buried structures, mines, bunkers, etc. That's why you don't see any fireworks.

The fact that the level of destruction did not even disrupt the operation of the transmitter sending up false lifesign sensor signals (which Garak picks up on immediately) to the fleet tells us that something far less than gigaton-level blasts are occurring anywhere on the planet.

Hmm...I dunno. The transceiver could've been on the other hemisphere
of the planet altogether.

And they are so incompetent that they can't localize its transmissions? Actually, I would expect that they must have a globally distributed network of transceivers. A single unit would be too easy to localize.

The only truly relevant part of the episode is what Col. Lovok says:
"Computer analysis indicates that the planet's crust will be destroyed
within one hour; and the mantle, within five."

The visuals are not relevant? I think they are both relevant; the visuals allow us to determine what Lovok really meant, as opposed to relying upon semantic analysis. They were probably aiming to kill off everything on the surface, and destroy any structures that might be buried deep in the crust or perhaps even the upper mantle (note that they don't distinguish between upper and lower mantle; we don't know whether he meant one or both), if they have sufficient technology to keep something intact down there. Use disruptors on the surface, to burn off a layer of surface material, and use burrowing torps to explode below-ground and collapse any such structures.

5-6 hours is, therefore, spent on removing the solid portion of the planet. At the least, we could assume it'd kill all life forms, including bacteria. That's impressive firepower, chain-reaction FX or not. It's too bad such effects aren't the case against shields, heavy armor, etc.

It's a BDZ-equivalent, no question (although the use of a funky no-side-effects matter-eating reaction makes it impossible to determine power requirements). However, the TDiC cult has, in the past, claimed actual vapourization, and we simply don't see the kind of astronomical power output in evidence that this interpretation would require. That's why we were arguing with him.

[seanrobertson]

Patrick,
I'm not Patrick, but I'd like to point out that while your argument works for ST3 (they were within a few hundred METRES, never mind km), it doesn't work for ST6. The BOP fires its torp at 1:40:00 on the DVD. The torp strikes the E-Nil at 1:40:07 on the DVD. If they are within a few km (say, 5km), this would imply that the torp's average speed is well below 1 km/s, which is simply pathetic.

>nods<. Their relative positions are pretty close at the end, but
those torpedo's velocities were also pathetic. You could easily
track that one torpedo that blew through the E-A's saucer before
it hit...

Let's say a photorp can accelerate at roughly 10 km/s^2 (I know I'm just pulling this number out of a hat, but if you've got a better figure, feel free to substitute it). After 7 seconds of travel, it should cover 245 km. At that range, there should be little or no risk (a 1 megaton explosion would not even injure human skin at that range). Even if it accelerates at only 1 km/s^2, it would cover 24.5 km after 7 seconds, and that's still at the range where a megaton explosion would cause no damage to a modern APC, never mind a supposedly armoured, shielded warship.

Definitely. These were also Federation torpedos, so there's no "small
BoP torpedo yield" caveat to fall back on.

Yes, but so what? What are those blastwaves composed of? They're obviously not atmospheric shockwaves (which move at the speed of sound). They might be upper-atmospheric ionization wavefronts, in which case their appearance is not that big of a deal (I refer readers to the aurora borealis, not to mention lightning storms).

Right. I meant nothing by as much other than to note they're
super-sonic, meaning whatever happened wasn't a conventional explosion.

Gigaton-class explosions would create persistent, extremely luminescent (we're talking about "surface of the Sun" here) fireballs which last for many tens of seconds. Even a brief glimpse should show us these huge, brilliant fireballs, and it doesn't.

As for the "uber-calcs" implied by actual crust "vapourization" as per Darkling's argument, I trust you recognize that we did not see the massive superheated sub-orbital extra-atmospheric ejecta plumes that should be produced by such an energetic event.

Indeed not. As you do, I always thought the crust "removal" as such
was just "NDFed" away, as in turned into neutrinos or the like. The fleet's
entire mass doesn't have enough to react with an equal amount of
AM to create such effects with direct heat transfer.

Actually, the upper mantle is in a "semi-fluid" state, and it is definitely hot
enough to glow visibly. Besides, actual vapourization or melting as per Darkling would produce glowing material regardless of whether it punches through the crust.

Oh, okay. My bad, then. I didn't know someone was responding to
his take that it was causing *true* vaporization. I didn't know anyone
still held to that idea

So we can rule out Darkling's interpretation, and go with mine: they are eating away big chunks of the surface with funky NDF reactions, and they're punching torps underground (perhaps special-purpose torps made specifically for this mission; surely SOMEONE in Trek is capable of realizing that special-purpose ordnance can sometimes make sense, as opposed to the "jack of all trades" philosophy) to cause seismic shockwaves that will collapse buried structures, mines, bunkers, etc. That's why you don't see any fireworks.

Oh, definitely. I was always running with the NDF reaction theory. I need
to read these threads a bit more carefully.

You'd also have to wonder why someone couldn't make planetary bombardment specific torpedos. I'm tempted to say that they could
make higher-yield warheads by stripping the casings of their
guidance systems, creating fire-and-forget weapons simply loaded
to the hilt, but I find this somewhat unsatisfactory given the static
nature of capital ship combat in Trek.

And they are so incompetent that they can't localize its transmissions? Actually, I would expect that they must have a globally distributed network of transceivers. A single unit would be too easy to localize.

Yes. One transmitter would be too easy to knock out...

The visuals are not relevant? I think they are both relevant; the visuals allow us to determine what Lovok really meant, as opposed to relying upon semantic analysis. They were probably aiming to kill off everything on the surface, and destroy any structures that might be buried deep in the crust or perhaps even the upper mantle (note that they don't distinguish between upper and lower mantle; we don't know whether he meant one or both), if they have sufficient technology to keep something intact down there. Use disruptors on the surface, to burn off a layer of surface material, and use burrowing torps to explode below-ground and collapse any such structures.

Oh, yes, definitely. What I meant was, I tended to throw away the "30% of the planetary crust destroyed in opening volley" line altogether, as it
was potentially tainted by dud sensor feedback. Everything in the episode is relevant to a degree. The visuals certainly are, even if we didn't see
the surface for very long (we did see it long enough to know what *wasn't* happening, of course; i.e., DET explosions). The dialogue is what I was
most concerned about...I trust the Lovok impersonator's take on the
operation, but the sensor feedback seemed bogus. It was to take at least an hour to eliminate all of the planet's life, including bacteria. To do
one-third of the job in a few seconds just doesn't ring true.

It's a BDZ-equivalent, no question (although the use of a funky no-side-effects matter-eating reaction makes it impossible to determine power requirements). However, the TDiC cult has, in the past, claimed actual vapourization, and we simply don't see the kind of astronomical power output in evidence that this interpretation would require. That's why we were arguing with him.

Damn. No wonder Like I said, I need to read these threads first.

Before that, I must collapse. Cheerio!

[Doomriser]

Okay, I concede. Shipboard phasers may be more powerful than 5.1MW, which is still 1/6th the power generated by a small 2-person civilian airspeeder in SW. Is this what Trek is reduced to?

[Howedar]

Again, the 5.1MW number has precisely zero relevance. Making fun of Trek because of this number is simply immature.

[CmdrWilkens]

Okay, I concede. Shipboard phasers may be more powerful than 5.1MW, which is still 1/6th the power generated by a small 2-person civilian airspeeder in SW. Is this what Trek is reduced to?

For a truly morbid example the phaser emitters, under the TM, combine for about 1.02 GW. The fires in the WTC were estimated to be releashing between 3 and 5 GW during their peak intensity periods. So according to the TM, and again being VERY morbid, the E-D can output less power than a burning jet liner.

[Solid Snake]

Uhh...yes it does. Mike Wong has pointed out that each of the 200 phaser sections put out 5.1 MW of power and if you multiply them together then you magically get 1020 MW, or 1.020 GW. Hmm...Poor B5...

Yes, but how many 200 MW guns do we have on B5? It's more than one, thats for sure. So, this argument is a double-edged sword, i guess.

[Kamakazie Sith]

It has to be observed at this point that any claims for photon torpedoes being capable of megaton-range blast yields are directly contraindicated by the canon evidence of the movies and television episodes. One of the most direct examples derives straight from the movie Star Trek III: In Search Of Spock. Commander Kruge's Bird of Prey took a direct hit, while unshielded, from an Enterprise photorp and suffered only minor internal damage. The photorps fired from Gen. Chang's BOP in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country exhibit no greater power —particularly the one which hit the unshielded Enterprise and blew through the saucer section. In either case, the target ship should have vanished in a large nuclear fireball if the weapons in question had megaton-range yields.

I see thanks for the explanation. You just said no large nuclear fireball, so I thought a large fireball would surfice.
Ref to TNG "Q Who" for your large fireball.

During the chase scene the E-D fires several torpedoes at the Borg Cube, when they hit the facing side of the borg cube is engulfed in a huge explosion.

Quite the opposite is demonstrated, KS. The blasts from the photorp explosions produce billowing clouds of superheated gas which disperse within a second. There are no large nuclear-event fireballs in evidence, nor do they burst forth with the radiance which would obscure our view of the cubeship's surface, nor is there any aftereffect upon the cubeship's deflector shields.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Ref to TNG "Q Who" for your large fireball.

During the chase scene the E-D fires several torpedoes at the Borg Cube, when they hit the facing side of the borg cube is engulfed in a huge explosion.

Quite the opposite is demonstrated, KS. The blasts from the photorp explosions produce billowing clouds of superheated gas which disperse within a second. There are no large nuclear-event fireballs in evidence, nor do they burst forth with the radiance which would obscure our view of the cubeship's surface, nor is there any aftereffect upon the cubeship's deflector shields.

I would also point out that there is no atmosphere in that situation, so the size of the explosion is caused by the scattering of luminescent debris from the torp itself, not by radiation/atmosphere/shockwave interactions as we would expect in an atmosphere. KS introduces a red herring with that comment (I didn't even think it was worth commenting on, to be honest, but I figured I might as well throw in my $.02 if someone else was going to mention it).

Why is it a red herring?

"Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country exhibit no greater power —particularly the one which hit the unshielded Enterprise and blew through the saucer section. In either case, the target ship should have vanished in a large nuclear fireball if the weapons in question had megaton-range yields."

I was refering him to "Q Who" where there is a large fireball present to counter the above quote.....specifically this part "In either case, the target ship should have vanished in a large nuclear fireball if the weapons in question had megaton-range yields."

Q Who had a large fireball. However, he explained the difference so there isn't much I can say. But I wanted to be clear here.