Why didn't Data shoot incoming torpedoes with the ship's phasers?

Data processes time much quicker than most organic lifeforms and can reconfigure a system with lightning speeds so I imagine he could target incoming torpedoes just as fast and detonate them before they hit the ship.

 

Realistically, I think you are correct. But I think writers either did not think about it or ignored it. Basically, it would give the E an almost perfect counter measure system where no enemy torpedoes could ever hit it. The Enterprise would become too powerful. In fact, there are probably several things that the writers have to ignore because it would bust the story.

 

Why Data? The ship's computer should be able to do that too.

I think the problem was that the torpedoes were always shown flying really slowly when they had a built in warp drive and should have hit their target a split second after they were launched.

 

^The sensors could be tricked but visually, Data should be able to lock on and detonate them in time.

 

So could the computer, as its "visuals" are exactly the same as Data's: both use fancy cameras to "see".

Human eyes wouldn't be any different: they, too, are just fancy cameras. If the enemy can fool one type of camera, he can probably fool another as well.

It might not be a targeting issue as all, but an issue of getting the phasers to hit the spot that the computer has targeted. The beams might simply be way too slow to track the target. After all, even though torpedoes are slow as molasses, everything else in Trek, including the things phasers are known to be capable of hitting, is even slower!

(Personally, I think Trek space combat is simply shown in slow motion, and in reality indeed is lightning-fast...)

Timo Saloniemi

 

To avoid any exploitation by promoters of the Star Wars project.

A a full-use of Data's established capacities would have busted a lot of stories. Why asking to stressed humanoid engineers to make critical repairs in a short delay instead of sending Data?

 

Because he was the Ops Manager not the Tactical Officer, obviously

 

If Trek were operating with full realism, then *every* battle would end with the computer giving everyone an update on what just happened, because none of the organics aboard would be entirely certain. I mean, sure, the humans seem to have some sort of unexplained (perhaps based on something historical that has not been covered) hesitancy to use AI for too much - but not every species would. And in a great big galaxy with millions of populated worlds, at least some of the ones that don't would have automated systems that are too fast for human response, and at least one of those would be hostile toward the Federation/Klingons/Romulans for one reason or another. Unless they entered an arms race with those species (and each other) to design faster, more intelligent AIs and faster systems, an increasing number of their ships would have encounters that run a little like this:

Sensor Officer: Captain, I'm detecti...
BOOM.

But that doesn't make for good television, so they ignore that, and Data doesn't run the weapons console, Worf does.

 

Data's positronic brain might actually be faster than the ship's computer (which I'm assuming is still dualtronic), even when having to act through the interface of manual controls.

Voyager has "bio-neural" gel packs, but I'd bet it's still slower than Data.

 

Basically, Trek avoids all that by featuring shields. After shields go up, there simply isn't enough firepower in the Trek universe to make a short fight out of it.

Given that, two more or less equally matched ships will gain little or nothing from allowing the computer to micromanage a fight to death, because it's completely up to chance which side will succumb; much better to take it slowly and let the wetware aboard decide whether calling it quits at some point will give a better victory than persisting with the firing.

Two unequal ships in turn will benefit even less from computer control. The smaller one is dead anyway in pure tactical terms; her only hope lies in tactics unrelated to weapons use. And the larger one is seldom merely interested in disposing of the smaller one as rapidly as possible. Taking a couple of well-pondered shots that immobilize or demoralize the enemy would usually be much more beneficial, and one doesn't need computer-fast reflexes for that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Because nobody ever thought of defensive fire before JJ Abrams.

 

Because previously, Starfleet had always had decent shielding.

 

What does Data's processing speed have to do with anything?

Targeting sensors can't track and lock on very fast, as shown in Generations.

 

While looking at the main viewer, the millisecond the torpedo is fired, Data could target the torpedo and fire the phasers with lightning speeds before the rest of the crew could even processes the enemy fired a torpedo.

 

I always thought that the signature glowing energy field around the torpedo was some kind of protective screen against such things. You, and your opponent, could spend the time trying to shoot down all the torpedoes coming at them, or you could both just eliminate the source of said torpedoes.

 

Now I see what you mean, but it doesn't work like that.

Phasers are not aimed manually, that would be even slower. Sensors would have to track the position of the enemy torpedo, then the firing mechanism would have to point the phasers into the probable location of the torpedo. It's just all too slow. On the show, computer locks on once these calculations are done, and the weapons officer just presses a button.

 

Yeah, sensors probably can't track it cleanly.

 

What I'm saying is Data could manually target them faster visually without scans or sensors (other then surveillance).

 

The guy on this site has the theory that torpedoes have shields:
http://st-v-sw.net/STSWtorpsh.html

 

^^Sounds like he'd need a physical window for that...the minute he's using a viewscreen or such he's already at the mercy of the ship's computer.