How Exactly Were The Narada's Torpedoes "Powerful"?

Sounds plausible.

 

Aren't we looking at this from the wrong end?

I mean, it doesn't take a powerful weapon to knock out a warp drive. Warp drives are fragile things in all of Star Trek. Which is only logical, or else there'd never be space combat in Star Trek because every opponent could sidestep into warp.

Also, the main advantage of the Narada wasn't the putative Borg technology or whatnot. Its main advantage was surprise and a fanatic devotion... Sorry. Its two main advantages were size, and the presence of red matter. Using the former, the ship could overwhelm any opponent: in each engagement, the ship launched a whole lot of projectiles, creating a devastating effect with less than devastating ammo. And using the latter, the ship could in theory effortlessly destroy every opponent it managed to hit, and perhaps every opponent within a certain blast radius as well.

Timo Saloniemi

 

In space , it wouldnt take much power to do serious damage.
If a ship like the Kelvin is unshielded and you know where the reactor is, one very dense kinetic slug launched fast enough at the antimatter stores -or the reactor itself-would vaporize the Kelvin.

But that would be a really short movie,wouldnt it?

 

I agree, and know all about the potential devestation from simple kinetic energy weapons in space. However - those torpedoes were being launched against shields, shileds which are designed to offer at least some protection from multi-megaton photon torpedoes, among other things. The Narada's torpedoes didn't produce blast yields anywhere near this level.

The only thing I can think of is that it used Borg nanotechnology to allow simple mining charges with low-yield chemical explosives to pass right through the shields of 23rd centruy starships.

 

It's possible that as mining torpedoes, they might have been designed to operate in high energy environments, such as radiation fields or any of the myriad "subspace anomalies" ST is known for. Even without Borg technology, that might have allowed the torps to punch through "primitive" shields without much of a visible effect. And "visible effect" is the key. A lot could be going on in spectrums other than visible light, just as it does with real world combat (ECM and ECCM are constantly "battling it out" but you can't tell unless you are watching a readout). After all, a massive nuclear detonation in space will look like a very quick very bright poop and, without an atmoshphere to heat or nearby materials to ablate, nothing else. Anyone with sensor equipment, however, will get quite a different show.

 

Yes, I'm aware of this too - though the flash of light from a nuke in space would be VERY big, and VERY bright. It would NOT look like a conventional high-explosive warhead detonation, which is exactly what the Narada's torpedoes produced. Also, it would affect an area of the hull far more than just a few meters in diameter directly around the impact sight. You'd see the entire hull briefly heated to a glowing red color, chunks of metal sloughing off both sides of the ship... it would be an astounding sight.

 

who says they were mining torpedoes? they might have been added post-Borg upgrade

 

If that's true, the Borg have seriously downgraded their firepower.

 

More evidence that the supposed "Borg upgrade" is a myth and so inconsistent with the film that it should (properly) be considered apocryphal.

 

This assumes that the torpedoes operate via explosives - nuclear, antimatter or otherwise. Many of ST weapons operate on principles that operate on exotic physics, so the explosion we see might just be a side effect. Perhaps the torpedo detonates a small charge (producing the small visible explosion) in order to provide an extremely high power flow to a [subspace resonance chamber, seismic charge, sonic disrupto quantum phase modulator, insert technobabble here?] Perhaps we are dealing with the subspace equivalent of a nuclear shaped charge or a nuclear-based X-ray laser. Perhaps it's a graser.

The short answer to all this is that we don't know, but we can't really rely on visual appearances as a strict depiction of capabilities.

 

Indeed. The term "spatial torpedoes" for standard 22nd-century armaments suggests that some sort of exotic physics was involved rather than simply being a straightforward thermonuclear device. Nor is it implied that spatial torpedoes have a higher yield that thermonuclear devices. They could be more desirable for a different reason, such as being less likely to leak radioactive material into your spaceship.

 

They got a hold of Janeway's transphasic torpedoes after voyager returned home . LOL

 

As others have already stated, this is an assumption - your assuming you can correlate destructive power from visible light release.

I, on the other hand, think that the lack of a "explosion" is proof of advanced technology - the key is to destroy the other ship, not create the biggest fireworks display.

I don't mind actual debate, but the number of people disputing the effectiveness of fictional 23rd century weaponry....

 

Well, there's also the unshielded Kelvin lasting far longer than it should...

 

Not only visible light release, but amount of damage done to the ship.

And Anticitizen is right - even with 23rd-century weapons, an unshielded Kelvin should've been obliterated in one hit. The only thing that makes sense so far is that they're 24th century mining explosives upgraded with Borg tech to let them pass through shields.

 

Or maybe they are a type of mining torpedo designed for boring deep holes in rock, kind of like a mobile drill fitted with low yield explosives.

 

Star Trek has never really gotten battles spot on as far as this type of stuff goes, it is just whatever the plot calls for. DS9 ships had no shields apart from the Defiant and Martoks ship. Hell, didn't the Enterprise-D fall to one or two torpedoes from an out of date BoP? I haven't really seen any shows that get space combat right apart from Battlestar Galactica, and that isn't really fair on Trek considering Galactica used real world weapons.

 

You can go all the way back to TOS for this. Nomad hit the Enterprise with a bolt equal to "90 photon torpedoes." It is simply nonsense to have any vessel survive a hit 90 times more powerful than one of its primary weapon systems. However, the plot demanded it so in the words of Ramses "so let it be written, so let it be done."

 

That and there were already enough lense flairs.

 

The NARADA also has to run from Enterprise-E and even mentions something about it being stronger than he expected.

Anyone else think NARADA seemed a lot like the scimitar ("shes a predator") from STN?