Xindi Death Count Question.

[T'Girl]

How did the Xindi beam weapon kill seven million people?

The beam craved a path of destruction several hundred feet across from central Florida to Venezuela, the thing is even if the beam cut through the middle of a major urban center, the beam is "only" several hundred feet wide, and doesn't look to have caused damage to the sides of it's immediate path.

From the arrow straight path the beam would have missed Homestead in southern Florida, it would have hit both the centers of Placetas and Sancti Spirtus in Cuba. Then western Jamaica. The beam might have reached as far as current day Medallin in Columbia which does have a large population of two and a half million. Interesting is that western Columbia in the 22nd century is part of Venezula.

I mention the city of Medellin with two and a half million people, the city is four hundred and fifty square miles, even if the beam passed through the most densely/heavily populated section it wouldn't cause the death of the majority of the city's inhabitants.

Now, this all that takes place a hundred and fifty years from today, communities grow and new ones will be created, but again the beam wasn't that wide. How did so many people die?

 

[Admiral Shran]

Maybe there are just more metropolises in Florida, Cuba, Jamaica and Columbia/Venezuela then there are today.

 

[Shatnertage]

Maybe the beam caused a bunch of ancillary disturbances like earthquakes or tsunamis that killed a lot of people.

 

[Tiberius]

Radiation? And what about thermal shock effects? If that beam passed 200 meters from you, I doubt you are going to survive. The heat would kill you, even though the beam didn't directly hit you. probably started lots of fires too.

 

[JiNX-01]

How did the Xindi beam weapon kill seven million people?

The beam craved a path of destruction several hundred feet across from central Florida to Venezuela, the thing is even if the beam cut through the middle of a major urban center, the beam is "only" several hundred feet wide, and doesn't look to have caused damage to the sides of it's immediate path.

From the arrow straight path the beam would have missed Homestead in southern Florida, it would have hit both the centers of Placetas and Sancti Spirtus in Cuba. Then western Jamaica. The beam might have reached as far as current day Medallin in Columbia which does have a large population of two and a half million. Interesting is that western Columbia in the 22nd century is part of Venezula.

I mention the city of Medellin with two and a half million people, the city is four hundred and fifty square miles, even if the beam passed through the most densely/heavily populated section it wouldn't cause the death of the majority of the city's inhabitants.

Now, this all that takes place a hundred and fifty years from today, communities grow and new ones will be created, but again the beam wasn't that wide. How did so many people die?

My supposition is that the impact of the weapon on the bottom of the Caribbean and the Atlantic would have led to tsunamis that would have devastated the coastlines.

 

[T'Girl]

So, secondary effects then?

 

[Reliant Robin]

The extended Tucker clan were all having a get-together. Never underestimate the impact that can have on population density.

That, or Trip counted his sister about 4 million times.

 

[JiNX-01]

So, secondary effects then?

Yes. Unfortunately, there are a couple of weird things about the attack.
No. 1: It looked to me like the beam hits in Orlando, not Pensacola, which was Trip's hometown.
No. 2: I think it would have been more effective if the SPFX had included at least one large city, because most of the land you see during the attack appears to be unpopulated.

 

[Skywalker]

The VFX people didn't match up the beam's trajectory with the writing. The beam didn't come anywhere close to Panama City, which is up on the Panhandle, and from the angle it traveled, it would have gone to Colombia, not Venezuela.

 

[creek_chub]

No. 1: It looked to me like the beam hits in Orlando, not Pensacola, which was Trip's hometown.

I got all excited for a second thinking it was cool my hometown was being annihilated in a Star Trek episode (weird thing to be excited about, I know) but if what I just looked up on YouTube was the correct scene from the show (I haven't actually seen any episodes of the Xindi arc yet) then no, it's not even Orlando...it looks like the beam starts in South Florida, just to the northwest of Lake Okeechobee, which I would say is about a hundred or so miles south of Orlando...and obviously nowhere near the panhandle! So no, it probably didn't directly hit any highly populated areas starting that low in the state.

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah, the only highly populated area south of where the beam struck is Miami, and that was east of the beam.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Was there any rough indication of how long the beam was? My geography skills suck, so I'd have no idea from the visuals how long that beam was. Obviously the population density would be higher, I'm just wondering if it's in the realm of possibility or not for it to be plausible.

 

[Timo]

We have to remember that the beam malfunctioned. Perhaps it did not hit any of the targets it had been intended to destroy; perhaps it hit some, then veered off course before being lost altogether. We could well assume that the beam did not malfunction from the start, and that it carefully hit population centers or Starfleet installations where damage would be maximized. Or then we could assume the Xindi had no idea where to hit, and fired blindly, trusting that a few hours of firing would terminate mankind even if they didn't bother to aim. But in that case, the Caribbean would be a weird place to start.

And we do see the path of destruction it leaves is much wider than 200 meters:

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x26/theexpanse_016.jpg
http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x26/theexpanse_189.jpg

The brown stain might mark the extent to which the secondary effects devastated the people (if not the landscape) on both sides of the actual ditch. This is how the beam started out:

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x26/theexpanse_013.jpg

But that was only a few seconds after it had been turned on. Possibly a few kilometers downrange, the heating of air would be seen causing fiery hurricane winds that create the kilometers-wide brown streak and obliterate entire cities.

We might also trust that the Xindi would know that the beam would start out weak - so the place they targeted initially might have been Cuba, and that's where the millions would die, while Florida would only be a collateral scratch.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

The beam didn't come anywhere close to Panama City, which is up on the Panhandle

OTOH, it's show hitting smack in the middle of Panama City, Panama. Which will probably cease to be part of the nation of Panama at some point of the future, ours and Trek alike. Venezuela might well be the future landlord.

We don't have to think the beam ever hit Panama City, Florida. It's never explicitly said that it did; moreover, it's not explicitly said that Trip's sister lived there. All we know is that Trip himself lived in Panama City, Florida, a long time ago ("Fusion"), and that his parents moved away from Panama City to Mississippi an undetermined time ago but probably fairly recently ("The Augments"). It could be pure coincidence that the other, more famous Panama City was hit in the same incident where Trip's sister was killed in an unknown Florida location.

Timo Saloniemi