Human input in Trek spaceship battles

[Crazy Eddie]

It would only be meaningful to say "X is a weak weapon" if X were fired in a situation where maximum power was called for, and produced a weak effect. For example TWoK is not one of those situations: neither Kirk nor Khan wanted to kill when firing their phasers.

You can say this for the opening sneak attack, but not for the battle in the Mutara Nebula.

And there's also the serious problem that for a starship with a limited supply of photon torpedoes, it is rather silly to waste, say, 90% of your ammunition on low-yield strikes only to suddenly not have them available when higher-yield uses are needed.


Another reference that caught my eye was the Cloud Creature from "Obsession." The creature is eventually destroyed by an antimatter detonation, but is evidently unharmed by photon torpedoes. The most likely reason for this is that photon torpedoes do most of their damage by physical impact, not by thermal/irradiative flux.

 

[Longinus]

Another reference that caught my eye was the Cloud Creature from "Obsession." The creature is eventually destroyed by an antimatter detonation, but is evidently unharmed by photon torpedoes. The most likely reason for this is that photon torpedoes do most of their damage by physical impact, not by thermal/irradiative flux.

At that point of the series, it was not yet decided that photon torpedoes were antimatter weapons. Later it is stated quite clearly though. Whether one wants to chalk this up as a continuity error, or assume that the earlier photon torps did not use antimatter, while the more advanced ones do is a matter of personal preference.

 

[Timo]

You can say this for the opening sneak attack, but not for the battle in the Mutara Nebula.

But even in the nebula, Kirk never went for the kill. Perhaps he was worried about good people under Khan's spell? Or then he just doesn't believe in killing, even in war, whenever there is another option (see "Errand of Mercy").

And at that point, Khan's ship was running on auxiliary power. Perhaps his phasers just weren't up to lethal shots?

Another reference that caught my eye was the Cloud Creature from "Obsession." The creature is eventually destroyed by an antimatter detonation, but is evidently unharmed by photon torpedoes. The most likely reason for this is that photon torpedoes do most of their damage by physical impact, not by thermal/irradiative flux.

OTOH, the creature was the master of dodging: it could get "aphysical" when it wanted not to be seen or harmed. Yet when the antimatter blast did it in, it was on a non-dodging mode, feasting on blood or preparing to.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myasishchev]

I thought it was invulnerable to gamma rays (and, like myself, neutrinos), vulnerable to being turned into gamma rays (and neutrinos).

 

[JuanBolio]

Another reference that caught my eye was the Cloud Creature from "Obsession." The creature is eventually destroyed by an antimatter detonation, but is evidently unharmed by photon torpedoes. The most likely reason for this is that photon torpedoes do most of their damage by physical impact, not by thermal/irradiative flux.

I think it was likely that the greature "dodged" this attack, because it was being fought and expected it. On the planet it was prepared to feed, and not expecting it. Also, an antimatter blast in an atmosphere will have effects that one in space would not - namely heat and pressure.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You can say this for the opening sneak attack, but not for the battle in the Mutara Nebula.

But even in the nebula, Kirk never went for the kill.

Khan did.

And at that point, Khan's ship was running on auxiliary power. Perhaps his phasers just weren't up to lethal shots?

That would be a tad convenient in this context, especially since they didn't have to spare any power for shields.

OTOH, the creature was the master of dodging: it could get "aphysical" when it wanted not to be seen or harmed. Yet when the antimatter blast did it in, it was on a non-dodging mode, feasting on blood or preparing to.

In which case, siphoning antimatter from the ship's drive systems would make no sense; it would have been easier to beam down to the planet with a stack of photon torpedo warheads.

And there's also Garovic's comment about the antimatter bottle containing such immense destructive power; he doesn't compare it to a photon torpedo, he compares it to "cobalt bombs." Seems evident from this that whatever photon torpedoes do, they DON'T cause explosions that would be comparable to nuclear devices.

 

[Myasishchev]

It's weird to compare energy release on detonation to a cobalt bomb, anyway. The point of a cobalt bomb is to semi-permanently make a plot of land uninhabitable. The immediate destructive power is fission-fusion (technically the cobalt itself is at least a tertiary stage, I guess, but it releases its energy over time, furthering bomb's salted-earth purpose).

I mean, it's like comparing the explosive power of a stick of dynamite to a bottle full of phosgene.

Of course, I don't understand at all why the Feds and others wouldn't boost the power of their pho-torps by using fusion secondaries. An annihilation reaction would have to make an insanely good primary, you probably wouldn't even bother with tritium, unless you wanted the neutron flux for a fission tertiary.

 

[JuanBolio]

Khan did.

In a damaged ship with an inexperienced skeleton crew.

 

[Timo]

In which case, siphoning antimatter from the ship's drive systems would make no sense; it would have been easier to beam down to the planet with a stack of photon torpedo warheads.

Well, my goal here is to find a way to describe "Obsession" so that it doesn't contradict later portrayals of photon torpedoes. So I'd argue on the lines of it being better to take a briefcase nuke than a shoulderful of Tomahawks to an assignment that involved a static trap. It would not be a question of firepower, but of practicability.

And there's also Garovic's comment about the antimatter bottle containing such immense destructive power; he doesn't compare it to a photon torpedo, he compares it to "cobalt bombs." Seems evident from this that whatever photon torpedoes do, they DON'T cause explosions that would be comparable to nuclear devices.

It could be argued that they cause bigger ones, which is undesirable in this particular case. A planetside WMD is what our heroes want, and "cobalt bomb" may be the 23rd century benchmark for planetside WMDs, possibly because cobalt bombs were predominantly used in WWIII and everybody is familiar with their effects.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's weird to compare energy release on detonation to a cobalt bomb, anyway. The point of a cobalt bomb is to semi-permanently make a plot of land uninhabitable. The immediate destructive power is fission-fusion (technically the cobalt itself is at least a tertiary stage, I guess, but it releases its energy over time, furthering bomb's salted-earth purpose).

I mean, it's like comparing the explosive power of a stick of dynamite to a bottle full of phosgene.

Of course, I don't understand at all why the Feds and others wouldn't boost the power of their pho-torps by using fusion secondaries. An annihilation reaction would have to make an insanely good primary, you probably wouldn't even bother with tritium, unless you wanted the neutron flux for a fission tertiary.

And yet if the antimatter reaction is channeled through a chunk of dilithium, the immediate effect of the photon torpedo might actually be a very short-lived warp field that imparts a huge kinetic shock on the target area. That would be considerably more efficient than even a fusion secondary since all of that kinetic energy is transferred directly to the target and none of it is lost as heat and radiation.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Khan did.

In a damaged ship with an inexperienced skeleton crew.

Which has what to do with their ability to set the ship's phasers on maximum power? They obviously knew how to obtain a phaser lock at the most sensitive point on a starship they had never seen before.

And in any case, the counter-argument in the case of the first attack was that Khan was pulling his punches to disable Enterprise (thus explaining why that one photon torpedo didn't blow the ship in half). Are you now saying that the Augments didn't know how to adjust the settings on their weapons?

 

[JuanBolio]

Their power systems were heavily damaged by the Enterprise's return volley during the first battle. It is possible they lacked the power necessary to set their phasers to maximum, yes, or that if they had the power would face radiation or other problems if they tried to channel that much into the phaser banks. We know that in refit-era ships the phaser energy was channeled through the warp drive, and the Reliant seemingly never got that back online. At least they didn't mention it. They did mention restoring impulse, so maybe phasers were running on auxiliary power...

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Their power systems were heavily damaged by the Enterprise's return volley during the first battle. It is possible they lacked the power necessary to set their phasers to maximum, yes, or that if they had the power would face radiation or other problems if they tried to channel that much into the phaser banks. We know that in refit-era ships the phaser energy was channeled through the warp drive, and the Reliant seemingly never got that back online. At least they didn't mention it. They did mention restoring impulse, so maybe phasers were running on auxiliary power...

Which would be yet another convenient example of "even though a single phaser blast can vaporize a whole planet, for [insert reason here] they only light things on fire when used in [insert episode here]."

We've long since reached the point where the excuses already outnumber the cases where phasers are stated or implied to be that powerful. The matter is slightly fuzzier on photon torpedoes, but then too, the exceptions occur far more often than the rule.

 

[Timo]

I very much disagree with that. What examples are there of weak phasers besides the nebula fight and Dukat's pitiful beam in "Return to Grace"? Two cases won't outnumber even the specific references to high power phasers, let alone the general gist that these are the main guns of a fearsome strategic weapon.

(Besides, our Starfleet heroes did the shields-down-but-still-protected trick in "The Chase". The Klingons may have been showing off, but they wouldn't be suicidal - so they probably had their SIFs up, too. Which probably is pretty much the same thing as having polarized armor, which does offer resistance to phaser beams.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I very much disagree with that. What examples are there of weak phasers besides the nebula fight and Dukat's pitiful beam in "Return to Grace"?

Actually, the question is what are the examples of WMD-style phasers capable of blasting entire cities off the map with singular discharges? Beyond that, nearly ever instance of phaser use in the series has them delivering the equivalent destructive power of a WW-II battleship gun.

Besides, our Starfleet heroes did the shields-down-but-still-protected trick in "The Chase". The Klingons may have been showing off, but they wouldn't be suicidal - so they probably had their SIFs up, too. Which probably is pretty much the same thing as having polarized armor, which does offer resistance to phaser beams.

Thus proving my point: it's possible to shrug off a phaser beam even with your shields down, even if the enemy is clearly NOT pulling their punches. Methinks phasers aren't going to be mushroom-clouding major cities any time soon.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Actually, the question is what are the examples of WMD-style phasers capable of blasting entire cities off the map with singular discharges? Beyond that, nearly ever instance of phaser use in the series has them delivering the equivalent destructive power of a WW-II battleship gun.

.

What a bunch of anti-Trek nonsense

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How is that anti-trek? There's ALOT of firepower in those old cannons.

Wait, don't tell me... you're about to accuse me of bashing trek by comparing the Enterprise-D to an imperial star destroying and trying to figure out which one of them would win in a fight.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

How is that anti-trek? There's ALOT of firepower in those old cannons.

Wait, don't tell me... you're about to accuse me of bashing trek by comparing the Enterprise-D to an imperial star destroying and trying to figure out which one of them would win in a fight.

That's exactly what you sound like, one of those crazies.

Phasers dig a hole 1 mile long or help wipe out planets (Mirror, Mirror, Die is Cast, disrupters have similar power to phasers).

Your argument has no legs to stand on

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How is that anti-trek? There's ALOT of firepower in those old cannons.

Wait, don't tell me... you're about to accuse me of bashing trek by comparing the Enterprise-D to an imperial star destroying and trying to figure out which one of them would win in a fight.

That's exactly what you sound like, one of those crazies.

My typical answer to every similar argument is "Depends on who's writing the crossover episode."

Phasers dig a hole 1 mile long or help wipe out planets (Mirror, Mirror, Die is Cast, disrupters have similar power to phasers).

So do battleship guns. They just take a hell of a lot longer to do it.

As I said upthread, new weapons aren't necessarily more powerful than old ones, they typically do exactly what the old weapons do, only faster and more efficiently. Increases in relative hitting power DO happen, but not as a rule, and not neccesarily in conjunction with being more advanced (since WW-II battleship guns are still several times more powerful than any gun system now in use). You might, for example, consider the phaser effects from STXI, where Enterprise is able to fire all twelve of her phasers at a rate of about 300spm per emitter. If each phaser pulse has the kinetic energy of a 16-inch shell (about 500 megajoules per individual pulse) this means the Enterprise could lay waste to a city the size of New York in about fifteen minutes, Dresden Style. Even if phasers are less powerful than that (think 5-inch dp naval round) the effect is still that the ship delivers relatively small "bites" of firepower, just a hell of a lot OF them.

And this would still be consistent with what we see from individual phaser strikes against single targets, where phasers tear bus-sized holes in other starships even with their phasers down. Slight variations in these effects can be explained effectively by slight differences in material resilience and armor thickness (the torpedo bay on the Enterprise was probably one of the most heavily armored parts on the ship).

 

[JuanBolio]

How is that anti-trek? There's ALOT of firepower in those old cannons.

Wait, don't tell me... you're about to accuse me of bashing trek by comparing the Enterprise-D to an imperial star destroying and trying to figure out which one of them would win in a fight.

That's exactly what you sound like, one of those crazies.

My typical answer to every similar argument is "Depends on who's writing the crossover episode."

Phasers dig a hole 1 mile long or help wipe out planets (Mirror, Mirror, Die is Cast, disrupters have similar power to phasers).

So do battleship guns. They just take a hell of a lot longer to do it.

As I said upthread, new weapons aren't necessarily more powerful than old ones, they typically do exactly what the old weapons do, only faster and more efficiently. Increases in relative hitting power DO happen, but not as a rule, and not neccesarily in conjunction with being more advanced (since WW-II battleship guns are still several times more powerful than any gun system now in use). You might, for example, consider the phaser effects from STXI, where Enterprise is able to fire all twelve of her phasers at a rate of about 300spm per emitter. If each phaser pulse has the kinetic energy of a 16-inch shell (about 500 megajoules per individual pulse) this means the Enterprise could lay waste to a city the size of New York in about fifteen minutes, Dresden Style. Even if phasers are less powerful than that (think 5-inch dp naval round) the effect is still that the ship delivers relatively small "bites" of firepower, just a hell of a lot OF them.

And this would still be consistent with what we see from individual phaser strikes against single targets, where phasers tear bus-sized holes in other starships even with their phasers down. Slight variations in these effects can be explained effectively by slight differences in material resilience and armor thickness (the torpedo bay on the Enterprise was probably one of the most heavily armored parts on the ship).

...but once again we find ourselves back to the problem of why, since Starfleet has such an awesome energy production capacity, would they utilize weapons that have such a puny upper limit in terms of yield? They certainly don't lack the technological know-how to make advanced WMDs, and there are often situations encountered by Starships that call for them. It doesn't add up.