22nd Century Federation vs. The Citadel Races (Mass Effect)

[Picard]

Right.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Plasma from a supernova won't attain a high fraction of c and the momentum will not allow for the relay to be pushed to move as fast as the plasma did. Why the position was lost has no bearing on the nature of the relay's displacement.

"Nature of the relay's displacement"? Are you suggesting that a supernova somehow is not a violent event?

No. That said, it depends on the star's size and the distance from the star.
What I and Trinoya said was that a continuous effect, less intense than one single hit, would also provide the momentum to push the relay away. I also talked about the lack of a star's gravity field considerably helping objects from that star system to go wander on their own after the supernova.

I posited that torpedo glow is a high intensity, environmentally dangerous, dense but short lived shield system. It fits with all we know, including the ability to pass through other shields by matching their frequency, which a normal "dumb" hull couldn't do without any help from another nullifying force field. It also explains why the invisible shields don't work while those on torps do. In the end it doesn't really matter, because it can only be a force field. Particles don't stick to a volume like that for no reason. And that's the proof that not all force fields were deactivated in the Mutara nebula. There's also logically no system whatsoever that would offer any advantage in glowing that way, constantly and from the moment the torpedo is fired, other than shields.

What "proof"? You've suggested an explanation, fine. Suggesting something does not prove it. As for "no system whatsoever", there is an alternate explanation: the antimatter payload. Antimatter containment and the power required to maintain it could cause the glow. This would also explain why probes without antimatter don't glow. I don't exactly have proof of this, but it's plausible, and it knocks "only theory out there" off of torpedo glow theory's list of advantages.

I used the word proof in relation to: some kind of force fields were still active, such as those on torpedoes. I didn't use the word proof as "I have proof that those force fields are shields."
My evidence that these force fields are shields is slim, and largely based on logic. Nothing better fits a need of an explanation than a defense shield.
Unless you have a much better explanation, I may stick to what makes the most and simplest sense from what we've got. At this point, I consider the working nature of the hypothesis to be enough for further debating.

But we can also just shrug it off and act as if those force fields didn't exist and debate thereon.
For that, we'd have to determine the strength of a torpedo's hull and its thermal capacity, notably against Gardian lasers.

Besides, the torps used by the guys in ENT were first handed to them by aliens. Plus the shield of a torpedo could be allowed to work differently because there isn't any crew on a torpedo, explaining why mounting shields on crewed ships would have been a problem to solve while it wasn't for torpedoes.

What aliens?

Can't remember but I didn't see any sign that these torpedoes were developed by the proto-UFP.

Therefore, instead of letting the nature of the glow as unknown, I prefer to consider it a near-certain sign of an unique shield system.

You may think that way, but you've done absolutely nothing to prove it. It's not a near-certain sign at all.

Near-certain means that the logic is so strong that it's quite a form of evidence on its own. That's how many theories in the real world work, accepted because they precisely work so well, yet remaining theories.

There is nothing that would limit their range as to force ST ships to come "close" to ME ships.
The evidence is what we can already do now, which is sufficient to make very clean calculations to guide modules beyond Jupiter, and the fact that the torpedoes are obviously way ahead of our own guiding systems and their range, and that those species use subspace for comms, which is FTL as long as being hard to jam for the Citadel races.

And there is nothing that indicates that the torpedoes could go that far. Post some evidence, for god's sake.

Your demand is not reasonable. What could possibly limit the range of such advanced torpedoes in open and relatively clear space (we leave debris fields aside)?
Again, we can track and guide primitive systems using rockets and radio over our own system. They have FTL sensors, much more acute sensors and fuel is much less of a problem.

Only if they can track them.
What is the fastest object tracked by a Gardian system and shot down?
What was its size?

...I just showed you. Are you dense?

Objects need to be going at relativistic velocities to avoid GARDIAN. It has 100% accuracy.

Here, I'll repost it in case you missed it:

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/ ... s:_GARDIAN

"Since lasers move at light speed, they cannot be dodged by anything moving at non-relativistic speeds. Unless the beam is aimed poorly, it will always hit its target. In the early stages of a battle, the GARDIAN fire is 100% accurate."

OK. What's the speed of projectiles intercepted by GARDIAN, in general?
If it's fast, we're stuck at the question of being able to shoot down torps with enough firepower vs torpedo's toughness.
But if projectiles are usually slow in ME, then torpedoes, sometimes displayed to be very fast (as in that episode with the tar creature Armus), may have a chance to hit even before the GARDIAN system has begun to try to get a lock.

I'll avoid using those odd multi-thousand km occurrences of phaser shots (they're validated by scripts but ruined by visuals, so it depends on what you may use although there's no strict policy on this here).

Pardon?
Why would the launching ship be less than a km away from the torp when it would detonate as a glancing hit against its target?

It would be less than a km away, because that's the only way it could get the torpdedo to detonate that close to the target before it gets intercepted by GARDIAN.

Thinking of it, at less than 1 km, are ME ships agile enough to realign their main weapons and aim at 22nd Century Trek ships? These small crafts aren't exactly sluggish.

[User1401]

No. That said, it depends on the star's size and the distance from the star.
What I and Trinoya said was that a continuous effect, less intense than one single hit, would also provide the momentum to push the relay away. I also talked about the lack of a star's gravity field considerably helping objects from that star system to go wander on their own after the supernova.

Ok, fine. The supernova is a little too ambiguous to quantify. However, it's not the only detail we have. Destroying a relay requires firepower on the level of flinging a small planetoid into it. If you want to argue that 22nd Trek weapons can destroy it, prove they have firepower on that level.

The easier alternative, as has been pointed out, might be simply making the relay unusable, by doing something like dropping it in a star. That would require proving that 22nd century proto-UFP factions can move something the size of a relay that far (and relatively quickly). Relays are 15 km long, IIRC.

[I used the word proof in relation to: some kind of force fields were still active, such as those on torpedoes. I didn't use the word proof as "I have proof that those force fields are shields."

Ok, so in response to me saying that the glow in the nebula proves that the glow isn't shields because the nebula deactivates shields, you say if I understand you correctly, is that the glow being shields proves that not all shields are deactivated in the nebula. I'm sorry, but that assumes that the glow is shielding in the first place. You're using your conclusion to prove your evidence for it; circular logic.

My evidence that these force fields are shields is slim, and largely based on logic. Nothing better fits a need of an explanation than a defense shield.
Unless you have a much better explanation, I may stick to what makes the most and simplest sense from what we've got. At this point, I consider the working nature of the hypothesis to be enough for further debating.

Uh...did you just flat out ignore my antimatter explanation?

But we can also just shrug it off and act as if those force fields didn't exist and debate thereon.
For that, we'd have to determine the strength of a torpedo's hull and its thermal capacity, notably against Gardian lasers.

Sure.

Can't remember but I didn't see any sign that these torpedoes were developed by the proto-UFP.

Uh, ok, so we just assume the proto-UFP developed them because we have no reason to think another faction developed them.

Near-certain means that the logic is so strong that it's quite a form of evidence on its own. That's how many theories in the real world work, accepted because they precisely work so well, yet remaining theories.

Yeah, and your logic is not strong. Case in point, the circular logic above.

Your demand is not reasonable. What could possibly limit the range of such advanced torpedoes in open and relatively clear space (we leave debris fields aside)?
Again, we can track and guide primitive systems using rockets and radio over our own system. They have FTL sensors, much more acute sensors and fuel is much less of a problem.

You have to be kidding me. Here, so you read it this time: FUEL. VELOCITY. Got it, now that I've said it for the third or fourth time? The torpedo could run out of fuel before reaching its target. It may not have the velocity to reach the target before the target is long gone, or the fight is already over. If you are deducing a torpedo's range based on its characteristics, you need to prove that a torpedo has sufficient fuel or velocity in order to prove a torpedo's range. You have done neither. The simplest way to prove torpedo range would be, y'know, to provide an instance where a torpedo hit a target over the range in question (a 22nd century torpedo, btw). Or just a statement about the range of torpedoes. Got any examples like this?

OK. What's the speed of projectiles intercepted by GARDIAN, in general?
If it's fast, we're stuck at the question of being able to shoot down torps with enough firepower vs torpedo's toughness.
But if projectiles are usually slow in ME, then torpedoes, sometimes displayed to be very fast (as in that episode with the tar creature Armus), may have a chance to hit even before the GARDIAN system has begun to try to get a lock.

It's not precisely known, but we already know that a projectile needs to be moving at a relativistic velocity to avoid interception by GARDIAN; any further information is unnecessary. You need to show that torpedoes move at relativistic velocities in order to claim that GARDIAN would miss them. As for Armus -- that's a 24th century example, is it not? As I said to Picard, 24th century examples prove about as much about 22nd century torpedoes as a 21st century artillery piece proves about an early 19th century cannon. Stick to 22nd century examples.

I'll avoid using those odd multi-thousand km occurrences of phaser shots (they're validated by scripts but ruined by visuals, so it depends on what you may use although there's no strict policy on this here).

Are any of these examples from Enterprise, thus 22nd century?

Thinking of it, at less than 1 km, are ME ships agile enough to realign their main weapons and aim at 22nd Century Trek ships? These small crafts aren't exactly sluggish.

Frigates would certainly be agile enough, cruisers are iffy, and dreadnoughts probably not. But Mass Effect ships have secondary weapons they can fall back on, such as broadside guns and disruptor torpedoes.

[Mr. Oragahn]

No. That said, it depends on the star's size and the distance from the star.
What I and Trinoya said was that a continuous effect, less intense than one single hit, would also provide the momentum to push the relay away. I also talked about the lack of a star's gravity field considerably helping objects from that star system to go wander on their own after the supernova.

Ok, fine. The supernova is a little too ambiguous to quantify. However, it's not the only detail we have. Destroying a relay requires firepower on the level of flinging a small planetoid into it. If you want to argue that 22nd Trek weapons can destroy it, prove they have firepower on that level.

I didn’t want to prove that relays can be destroyed with Trek weapons. I was disputing the high toughness derived from a vague reference on a supernova. Now the planetoid in question, Trinoya said that it was in fact an asteroid on page 1. Planetoids are defined by a minimal amount of roundness to them. Not total, but certainly reaching hydrostatic equilibrium. I don’t recall the rock being that wide, not to say that a relay isn’t particularly huge, in fact. Nor fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GeCEmO7lYw

I’m not seeing much evidence of that quantum hardening being much effective here.
Looking at it, I’d say that proto-UFP factions wouldn’t have much trouble wrecking one.
That said, I suspect that something special was going on with that relay as they’re definitely touted as strong and virtually indestructible, but then strong evidence of this toughness is absolutely required to dispute what we see in the video.

My 2c would veer towards a possible Trojan scenario, where the relay tried to boost the rock into space (we see the tendrils typical of that) but the mass was so large that the relay couldn’t cope with the momentum. So it becomes clear that large momentum can defeat what lightweight but hyperfast projectiles, missiles and other nukes can’t.
Like Y/N?

This Alpha Relay’s destructive potential also appears to be absolutely unique by the way, so one cannot claim that it applies to other relays. I’ll therefore ask for more information on this particularity.

The easier alternative, as has been pointed out, might be simply making the relay unusable, by doing something like dropping it in a star. That would require proving that 22nd century proto-UFP factions can move something the size of a relay that far (and relatively quickly). Relays are 15 km long, IIRC.

They certainly don’t seem that long when the Normandy flies next to them. Those frigates are what? 150 meters long, give or take.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwuTzlHyXUg

Am I missing something?

[I used the word proof in relation to: some kind of force fields were still active, such as those on torpedoes. I didn't use the word proof as "I have proof that those force fields are shields."

Ok, so in response to me saying that the glow in the nebula proves that the glow isn't shields because the nebula deactivates shields, you say if I understand you correctly, is that the glow being shields proves that not all shields are deactivated in the nebula. I'm sorry, but that assumes that the glow is shielding in the first place. You're using your conclusion to prove your evidence for it; circular logic.

Shields are force fields.
Torpedoes are surrounded by a force field as well (there’s no mechanism that can safely explain the glow, which is physical in nature).
Starship shields are deactivated in the Mutura nebula.
So not all force fields are deactivated.

Which leaves the plausibility of the existence of a different kind of defensive force field on torpedoes. From there, my reasoning is about the same as sonofccn’s.

My evidence that these force fields are shields is slim, and largely based on logic. Nothing better fits a need of an explanation than a defense shield.
Unless you have a much better explanation, I may stick to what makes the most and simplest sense from what we've got. At this point, I consider the working nature of the hypothesis to be enough for further debating.

Uh...did you just flat out ignore my antimatter explanation?

Sorry but I only replied to your message. I still was to read the rest of the thread.
Now that it’s done, I can say that your antimatter-glow theory (as first succinctly presented here) is far too complicated and illogical to work. For example, the idea that the glow that comes from inside the torpedo can shine through the hull.
I’ve read sonofccn’s and I consider that he properly debunked your theory. Which leaves the simplest and most intuitive one, that glow is related to a force field that could well be defensive, perhaps even offensive, in nature.

But we can also just shrug it off and act as if those force fields didn't exist and debate thereon.
For that, we'd have to determine the strength of a torpedo's hull and its thermal capacity, notably against Gardian lasers.

Sure.

So, starting with ME, do we have any yields on GARDIAN lasers?
As for Trek, have we seen these torpedoes survive impressive impacts or did we get information on the composition of their hulls?

Can't remember but I didn't see any sign that these torpedoes were developed by the proto-UFP.

Uh, ok, so we just assume the proto-UFP developed them because we have no reason to think another faction developed them.

Near-certain means that the logic is so strong that it's quite a form of evidence on its own. That's how many theories in the real world work, accepted because they precisely work so well, yet remaining theories.

Yeah, and your logic is not strong. Case in point, the circular logic above.

Clearly, I beg to differ. See above. It is possible to have strong force fields to exist without them being starship shields. Starship shields have to be suited for ships, their sensors, the ability to be reliable (and thus may trade off strength for said reliability) and not harm the crews.
I suggested, among other things, that they’re time-limited high-burn very intensive, perhaps unstable in the sense that they’re designed to burst on impact (which would be a flaw for starships), and could also be highly dangerous to living beings but that wouldn’t matter with missiles.

Your demand is not reasonable. What could possibly limit the range of such advanced torpedoes in open and relatively clear space (we leave debris fields aside)?
Again, we can track and guide primitive systems using rockets and radio over our own system. They have FTL sensors, much more acute sensors and fuel is much less of a problem.

You have to be kidding me. Here, so you read it this time: FUEL. VELOCITY. Got it, now that I've said it for the third or fourth time? The torpedo could run out of fuel before reaching its target.

Perhaps, but there are tons of ways to manage fuel reserves. With torpedoes most likely using fusion if not outright antimatter as part of the propulsion system, we’re contemplating a technology that provides considerable amounts of energy for very little mass (right there, the vehicle doesn’t have to fight against its own mass in fuel to move forth).
Then, again, in space, there’s little limit to the range. Your limit is how far you can see and guide your projectile. In theory, perfect knowledge of all space parameters would allow a ship to know how, when a where to launch a projectile so that local gravity fields not only don’t disturb the path of the device, but could also be used.
Well, that’s just basic astrophysics amped to the level of science fiction. I am not seeing what is so hard to understand here if not a hard will to reject anything that would give Trek a superior range.
The question of a moving target has to be treated differently, and course correction is indeed going to consume fuel. I don’t expect it to be much though, when fusion power is involved.
As such…

It may not have the velocity to reach the target before the target is long gone, or the fight is already over. If you are deducing a torpedo's range based on its characteristics, you need to prove that a torpedo has sufficient fuel or velocity in order to prove a torpedo's range. You have done neither.

You’re being needlessly obtuse on very obvious capabilities. Most of the trip could be spent dumbly drifting towards the overall region of space where the target is located, with only full guidance and course correction kicking in during the approach within the latest kilometers.

The simplest way to prove torpedo range would be, y'know, to provide an instance where a torpedo hit a target over the range in question (a 22nd century torpedo, btw). Or just a statement about the range of torpedoes. Got any examples like this?

Oh, perhaps you’re right and they have so little fuel that a torpedo can barely track a target over a few kilometers before it’s out of fuel. I haven’t watched ENT, so I can’t find any example. I don’t know of any torpedo examples to study safe perhaps one where a torp is used to shoot down another torp.
If torpedo ranges by ENT times are so ridiculously low, I’ll leave it to others, since basic and working theory about technological abilities can’t compete with bad writing and plot fiat. :)

OK. What's the speed of projectiles intercepted by GARDIAN, in general?
If it's fast, we're stuck at the question of being able to shoot down torps with enough firepower vs torpedo's toughness.
But if projectiles are usually slow in ME, then torpedoes, sometimes displayed to be very fast (as in that episode with the tar creature Armus), may have a chance to hit even before the GARDIAN system has begun to try to get a lock.

It's not precisely known, but we already know that a projectile needs to be moving at a relativistic velocity to avoid interception by GARDIAN; any further information is unnecessary. You need to show that torpedoes move at relativistic velocities in order to claim that GARDIAN would miss them. As for Armus -- that's a 24th century example, is it not? As I said to Picard, 24th century examples prove about as much about 22nd century torpedoes as a 21st century artillery piece proves about an early 19th century cannon. Stick to 22nd century examples.:

The text you cited earlier on about GARDIAN accuracy is the same as on the wikia. Is it official?
If so, then it’s indeed going to be tough for torpedoes not to be hit. In fact, Trek ships certainly don’t know anything like Macross Missile Massacres. Only the toughness of the torpedo will make the difference at long ranges.

I'll avoid using those odd multi-thousand km occurrences of phaser shots (they're validated by scripts but ruined by visuals, so it depends on what you may use although there's no strict policy on this here).

Are any of these examples from Enterprise, thus 22nd century?

Please ask resident Trekkies. :)

Thinking of it, at less than 1 km, are ME ships agile enough to realign their main weapons and aim at 22nd Century Trek ships? These small crafts aren't exactly sluggish.

Frigates would certainly be agile enough, cruisers are iffy, and dreadnoughts probably not. But Mass Effect ships have secondary weapons they can fall back on, such as broadside guns and disruptor torpedoes.

In fact the speed and maneuverability of ships in ENT aren’t that impressive compared to what we could see around TNG.
What I’ve seen of the frigates in ME allows me to think that they’re in fact better.

What are those secondary weapons you spoke of and what are their yields?

[User1401]

I didn’t want to prove that relays can be destroyed with Trek weapons. I was disputing the high toughness derived from a vague reference on a supernova. Now the planetoid in question, Trinoya said that it was in fact an asteroid on page 1. Planetoids are defined by a minimal amount of roundness to them. Not total, but certainly reaching hydrostatic equilibrium. I don’t recall the rock being that wide, not to say that a relay isn’t particularly huge, in fact. Nor fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GeCEmO7lYw

I’m not seeing much evidence of that quantum hardening being much effective here.
Looking at it, I’d say that proto-UFP factions wouldn’t have much trouble wrecking one.
That said, I suspect that something special was going on with that relay as they’re definitely touted as strong and virtually indestructible, but then strong evidence of this toughness is absolutely required to dispute what we see in the video.

My 2c would veer towards a possible Trojan scenario, where the relay tried to boost the rock into space (we see the tendrils typical of that) but the mass was so large that the relay couldn’t cope with the momentum. So it becomes clear that large momentum can defeat what lightweight but hyperfast projectiles, missiles and other nukes can’t.
Like Y/N?

I have a feeling that the relay destruction was a bit in slow motion. The shockwave it created was supposed to wipe out the solar system in a supernova-level event, yet the shockwave was slow too. And please, provide some actual evidence instead of your opinion that "proto-UFP factions wouldn't have much trouble wrecking one". You seem to have an allergy to providing evidence for 22nd century Trek.

This Alpha Relay’s destructive potential also appears to be absolutely unique by the way, so one cannot claim that it applies to other relays. I’ll therefore ask for more information on this particularity.

Unique? The Alpha Relay is unique only in the sense that it has links to many relays across the galaxy. Its actual durability isn't different than a normal relay.

They certainly don’t seem that long when the Normandy flies next to them. Those frigates are what? 150 meters long, give or take.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwuTzlHyXUg

Am I missing something?

Perspective skews things. Here, from "Mass Effect: Revelation", describing a relay: "At its center was a sphere made of two concentric rings spinning around a single axis. Each ring was nearly five kilometers across, and two fifteen-kilometer arms protruded out from one end of the constantly rotating middle."

Shields are force fields.
Torpedoes are surrounded by a force field as well (there’s no mechanism that can safely explain the glow, which is physical in nature).
Starship shields are deactivated in the Mutura nebula.
So not all force fields are deactivated.

Your second premise is unproven. Your third premise is not entirely true as well. Your logic is not sound. Let's try an "If P, then Q" formula:

If something is in the Mutara nebula (P), then its shields are not functioning (Q) (feel free to provide evidence that this would not apply to torpedoes).
If a torpedo is glowing (A), then its shields are functioning (Not Q).

If P, then Q. If A, then not Q. Q cannot be both true and not true. However, in the Wrath of Khan, both P and A are true. One of the above statements, therefore, must be false in order for the other to be true. "If P then Q" is specifically stated. "If A then not Q" is never directly stated, period. We know "If P then Q" is true; therefore, "If A then not Q" must be false.

Sorry but I only replied to your message. I still was to read the rest of the thread.
Now that it’s done, I can say that your antimatter-glow theory (as first succinctly presented here) is far too complicated and illogical to work. For example, the idea that the glow that comes from inside the torpedo can shine through the hull.
I’ve read sonofccn’s and I consider that he properly debunked your theory. Which leaves the simplest and most intuitive one, that glow is related to a force field that could well be defensive, perhaps even offensive, in nature.

Torpedo glow theory requires the idea that shields not under stress somehow glow. That's not much more far-fetched and unproven than antimatter containment causing glow on the outside of the torpedo. As for "far to complicated and illogical", it's not perfect, no, but torpedo glow theory is illogical too regarding the Mutara Nebula and still has no evidence whatsoever.

So, starting with ME, do we have any yields on GARDIAN lasers?
As for Trek, have we seen these torpedoes survive impressive impacts or did we get information on the composition of their hulls?

As I've been saying, we know that GARDIAN is enough to effectively shoot down missiles. Torpedoes are missiles which we have no reason to think are more durable than ordinary missiles. GARDIAN should have no problem shooting them down.

Clearly, I beg to differ. See above. It is possible to have strong force fields to exist without them being starship shields. Starship shields have to be suited for ships, their sensors, the ability to be reliable (and thus may trade off strength for said reliability) and not harm the crews.

Ok. This doesn't prove torpedo shields would be any different.

I suggested, among other things, that they’re time-limited high-burn very intensive, perhaps unstable in the sense that they’re designed to burst on impact (which would be a flaw for starships), and could also be highly dangerous to living beings but that wouldn’t matter with missiles.

"Suggested"; a roundabout way of saying "I have no evidence" for you, I suppose.

Perhaps, but there are tons of ways to manage fuel reserves. With torpedoes most likely using fusion if not outright antimatter as part of the propulsion system, we’re contemplating a technology that provides considerable amounts of energy for very little mass (right there, the vehicle doesn’t have to fight against its own mass in fuel to move forth).

Ok, sure. It wouldn't be implausible. It's still unproven. Now prove that torpedoes have enough fuel for the ranges you suggest, already.

Then, again, in space, there’s little limit to the range. Your limit is how far you can see and guide your projectile. In theory, perfect knowledge of all space parameters would allow a ship to know how, when a where to launch a projectile so that local gravity fields not only don’t disturb the path of the device, but could also be used.

Sure. I prefer the explanation from Mass Effect, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpgxry542M

Now notice something here. A velocity is provided. Fancy that!

Well, that’s just basic astrophysics amped to the level of science fiction. I am not seeing what is so hard to understand here if not a hard will to reject anything that would give Trek a superior range.

I can't reject anything when you haven't provided any evidence for establishing Star Trek torpedo range in the first place.

The question of a moving target has to be treated differently, and course correction is indeed going to consume fuel. I don’t expect it to be much though, when fusion power is involved.
As such…

"I don't expect it to be much" here meaning "I'm just going to make up stuff", I suppose.

You’re being needlessly obtuse on very obvious capabilities. Most of the trip could be spent dumbly drifting towards the overall region of space where the target is located, with only full guidance and course correction kicking in during the approach within the latest kilometers.

Sure. Now how does this prove a torpedo's "very obvious capabilities"? I don't see any numbers on velocity there...

Oh, perhaps you’re right and they have so little fuel that a torpedo can barely track a target over a few kilometers before it’s out of fuel. I haven’t watched ENT, so I can’t find any example. I don’t know of any torpedo examples to study safe perhaps one where a torp is used to shoot down another torp.
If torpedo ranges by ENT times are so ridiculously low, I’ll leave it to others, since basic and working theory about technological abilities can’t compete with bad writing and plot fiat. :)

If you haven't watched ENT and aren't that familiar with it, then why in the world are you arguing for it?

The text you cited earlier on about GARDIAN accuracy is the same as on the wikia. Is it official?
If so, then it’s indeed going to be tough for torpedoes not to be hit. In fact, Trek ships certainly don’t know anything like Macross Missile Massacres. Only the toughness of the torpedo will make the difference at long ranges.

The text about GARDIAN is from Mass Effect's in-game codex, which has been copied verbatim onto the Mass Effect wiki.

Please ask resident Trekkies. :)

I thought you were one...

What are those secondary weapons you spoke of and what are their yields?

Disruptor torpedoes are short-ranged torpedoes spammed en masse by fighters. They overwhelm GARDIAN defenses by sheer numbers, and have a special mass effect field that allows them to bypass kinetic barriers. Exact yields are unknown.

Broadside guns are short-ranged mass accelerators. We don't know exact yields of these either, but we do know that a Kilimanjaro-class dreadnought has 76 guns on each side for a total of 152 guns.

[Lucky]

...ok?

YOu don't believe that navigational deflector move things out of the way of ships at Faster then light speeds?

Reference? If the navigational deflectors really are omni-directional, and their deflection at FTL is taken at face value, then by all means they should be the primary defense rather than normal shields (they work on energy weapons like lasers)

Navigational Deflectors are the primary defense of the ship, and are always turned on as far as I can tell, but anyone who has a warp drive know how they work, and has the technology to penetrate them. You will notice how everyone in Star Trek seems to use technobabble weapons, and guided munitions that seemingly have their own navigational deflectors. No one just fire mundane stuff like hunks of iron, or photons
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Ma ... terior.jpg

And that's a 23rd century example, not a 22nd century example.

The role of a Navigational Deflector never changes, and you will note the capabilities seem to be similar no matter what era. If something works in Star Trek they tend to only refine the system.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Navigational_deflector

Even better, a 24th century example.

The role of a Navigational Deflector never changes, and you will note the capabilities seem to be similar no matter what era. Do you honestly believe a tiny shuttle is going to have a navigational deflector more powerful then a ship meant to go faster then light, and had the Vulcans help build it?
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Navigational_deflector

23rd century example, and doesn't disprove the idea that the warp field is lightening the mass of impacting objects.

It is evidence that Navigational deflectors work in an odd but consistent manner when it comes to matter

A Klingon Bird of Prey can go to warp in Earth's atmosphere, and not cause any noticeable effects.

A shuttle can travel through Titan's atmosphere a 70% the speed of light, and it will not cause anything in the way of noticeable effects. You have to be caught in the act. (Chain of Command)

In The Ship a Jem'hadar "fighter" embeds itself ninety meters into a rock, but the only damage is a crushed guidance thruster. (The Ship)
http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 121&page=2

Um, thanks for providing my evidence?

No, the quotes don't help you, and they don't show mass lowering is standard.

The context of both events is the UFP Engineers thinking outside the box, and then altering systems to do things they would not normally do, and to make matters worse they never do it the same way twice.

The real question is why would a 22nd century Star Trek power be able to move a mass relay.

Why couldn't they? I'm pretty sure modern real world Earth could move a Mass Relay given enough time. Vulcans are far more advanced and powerful then the Humans 22nd century Star Trek as are a number of future UFP members.

[User1401]

YOu don't believe that navigational deflector move things out of the way of ships at Faster then light speeds?

I said "ok". I knew it already.

Navigational Deflectors are the primary defense of the ship, and are always turned on as far as I can tell, but anyone who has a warp drive know how they work, and has the technology to penetrate them. You will notice how everyone in Star Trek seems to use technobabble weapons, and guided munitions that seemingly have their own navigational deflectors. No one just fire mundane stuff like hunks of iron, or photons
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Ma ... terior.jpg

By "primary defense" I meant primary combat defense, which they're not, shields are used instead. Is there a reference that shows phasers, disruptors, torpedoes, etc. bypass the navigational deflectors rather than directly overpowering them?

The role of a Navigational Deflector never changes, and you will note the capabilities seem to be similar no matter what era. If something works in Star Trek they tend to only refine the system.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Navigational_deflector

I refer you to the cannon example I provided before. In the 19th century, armies possessed cannons. In the 20th century, armies also possessed cannon artillery. But 20th century artillery possesses characteristics, such as higher velocity, depleted uranium ammunition, etc., that doesn't apply to 19th century artillery. A technology possessing certain characteristics doesn't prove that similar technology from centuries ago had the same characteristics. The characteristics of the centuries older technology must be proven separately. The principles, or "role", may be the same, but that doesn't mean that the full capabilities are the same.

I will note that 22nd century examples would be valid if we were discussing 23rd or 24th century techology, as long as we have no reason to think technology had changed and improved in that time. Also, weaknesses of 23rd or 24th century technology likely apply to 22nd century technology, since it would be absurd for technology to have regressed between the time periods.

No, the quotes don't help you, and they don't show mass lowering is standard.

The context of both events is the UFP Engineers thinking outside the box, and then altering systems to do things they would not normally do, and to make matters worse they never do it the same way twice.

Do they directly state that lowering mass is something the systems don't normally do? If not, then it certainly proves that mass lowering using the warp drive or navigational deflector is possible, and makes mass lightening to aid deflection a plausible explanation for why navigational deflectors can withstand impacts at many times the speed of light, while not making a difference against weapons with much lower energy. Need I remind you of the battle in "Nemesis"? We have two examples: a Romulan warbird's nacelle impacts on the Enterprise, significantly depleting shields. Then the Enterprise rams the Scimitar, when just previously the Scimitar was stated to have its shields at 70%. Where were the navigational deflectors that just shrug off high C impacts, then?

Why couldn't they? I'm pretty sure modern real world Earth could move a Mass Relay given enough time. Vulcans are far more advanced and powerful then the Humans 22nd century Star Trek as are a number of future UFP members.

"I'm pretty sure" isn't evidence. At best, modern Earth could move a relay verrrrry slowly. Perhaps 22nd century Earth and other factions could do the same, but they would be sitting ducks for the Mass Effect factions to attack. If you want to claim that the 22nd century Trek factions can move mass relays fast enough to make the tactic viable, it's up to you to provide evidence.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I didn’t want to prove that relays can be destroyed with Trek weapons. I was disputing the high toughness derived from a vague reference on a supernova. Now the planetoid in question, Trinoya said that it was in fact an asteroid on page 1. Planetoids are defined by a minimal amount of roundness to them. Not total, but certainly reaching hydrostatic equilibrium. I don’t recall the rock being that wide, not to say that a relay isn’t particularly huge, in fact. Nor fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GeCEmO7lYw

I’m not seeing much evidence of that quantum hardening being much effective here.
Looking at it, I’d say that proto-UFP factions wouldn’t have much trouble wrecking one.
That said, I suspect that something special was going on with that relay as they’re definitely touted as strong and virtually indestructible, but then strong evidence of this toughness is absolutely required to dispute what we see in the video.

My 2c would veer towards a possible Trojan scenario, where the relay tried to boost the rock into space (we see the tendrils typical of that) but the mass was so large that the relay couldn’t cope with the momentum. So it becomes clear that large momentum can defeat what lightweight but hyperfast projectiles, missiles and other nukes can’t.
Like Y/N?

I have a feeling that the relay destruction was a bit in slow motion. The shockwave it created was supposed to wipe out the solar system in a supernova-level event, yet the shockwave was slow too.

I take it as a no then.
The shockwave was triggered from an exotic thing, so it’s not to be compared to a fusion based supernova.
Plus we’ve seen that when hit by the rock, the relay’s rings were rotating at the same speed as when the SR-2 was shot out of the systems, there was no slowmo going on, clearly. More precisely, if there may have been a slow mo going on as the blue sphere expanded –although we have zero evidence of that– we can safely claim that there was none when the rock hit it.

In fact, the very idea that humans considered that moving an asteroid, with the STL propulsion technology they possessed then, and slamming it into a relay would destroy it, speaks of not so impressive materials. Certainly no unobtainium.
The wikia page, while mentioning the quantum boost in toughness, also spoke of a shield. I suppose that a part of the explanation may lie in that.

And please, provide some actual evidence instead of your opinion that "proto-UFP factions wouldn't have much trouble wrecking one". You seem to have an allergy to providing evidence for 22nd century Trek.

With torpedoes capable of putting 3 km wide kilometers into large asteroids on max yield, we’re obviously dealing with potent weapons. What I see in the video tells me that the mass relay hates momentum with a passion, and torpedoes won’t help much here, but it also tells me that the structure of the relay itself was hardly putting up much of a resistance against the rock. Said rock rather plowed through the relay easily, which speaks of certain clear vulnerabilities. I’m surprised that relays haven’t been destroyed before.
I’d be extremely surprised that the material in question would suck so much against momentum but display formidable thermal resistance against point contact low multi-megaton antimatter bombs.

This Alpha Relay’s destructive potential also appears to be absolutely unique by the way, so one cannot claim that it applies to other relays. I’ll therefore ask for more information on this particularity.

Unique? The Alpha Relay is unique only in the sense that it has links to many relays across the galaxy. Its actual durability isn't different than a normal relay.

The wikia page clearly suggests that it is special at least in that it can amass a huge amount of energy, which is described as not usual, the reason why its demise would result into such destruction:

“Alpha usually sends and receives mass at the range of a normal secondary relay, but if certain controls are adjusted, it becomes powered by an unprecedented amount of dark energy that could send cargo to sixteen other relays and even across a great distance to the Citadel.”

They certainly don’t seem that long when the Normandy flies next to them. Those frigates are what? 150 meters long, give or take.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwuTzlHyXUg

Am I missing something?

Perspective skews things. Here, from "Mass Effect: Revelation", describing a relay: "At its center was a sphere made of two concentric rings spinning around a single axis. Each ring was nearly five kilometers across, and two fifteen-kilometer arms protruded out from one end of the constantly rotating middle."

Visuals clearly contradict that. We do know with much assurance that the ship, in both cutscenes, was flying close to the relay, and it’s again verified with the trail left.
What is the canon status of that book?

Shields are force fields.
Torpedoes are surrounded by a force field as well (there’s no mechanism that can safely explain the glow, which is physical in nature).
Starship shields are deactivated in the Mutura nebula.
So not all force fields are deactivated.

Your second premise is unproven. Your third premise is not entirely true as well. Your logic is not sound. Let's try an "If P, then Q" formula:

If something is in the Mutara nebula (P), then its shields are not functioning (Q) (feel free to provide evidence that this would not apply to torpedoes).

What about you providence evidence that it would affect other force fields?
Isn’t the entire information we have under the form of: two ships of UFP design couldn’t maintain their respective shields inside the Mutara nebula?
The real information is that we know nothing about the interaction between the gas and static of that nebula and other types of force fields, especially if applied to much smaller objects.

If a torpedo is glowing (A), then its shields are functioning (Not Q).

If P, then Q. If A, then not Q. Q cannot be both true and not true. However, in the Wrath of Khan, both P and A are true. One of the above statements, therefore, must be false in order for the other to be true. "If P then Q" is specifically stated. "If A then not Q" is never directly stated, period. We know "If P then Q" is true; therefore, "If A then not Q" must be false.

Only if you prove that the nebula will deactivate all types of shields, all types of force fields. I’m afraid you cannot do that with the little information we have.

Sorry but I only replied to your message. I still was to read the rest of the thread.
Now that it’s done, I can say that your antimatter-glow theory (as first succinctly presented here) is far too complicated and illogical to work. For example, the idea that the glow that comes from inside the torpedo can shine through the hull.
I’ve read sonofccn’s and I consider that he properly debunked your theory. Which leaves the simplest and most intuitive one, that glow is related to a force field that could well be defensive, perhaps even offensive, in nature.

Torpedo glow theory requires the idea that shields not under stress somehow glow. That's not much more far-fetched and unproven than antimatter containment causing glow on the outside of the torpedo.

A shield being a force field, if one is to dump enough energized particles inside said force field, it is totally possible that it could actually become visible by virtue of being choke full of particles. That is the idea; that a torpedo’s shield is jam packed, short lived and dangerous to anything safe the torpedo, since it’s not alive.
However, the story of light that shines through the hull, I’m sorry to tell you, that is just not serious.

As for "far to complicated and illogical", it's not perfect, no, but torpedo glow theory is illogical too regarding the Mutara Nebula and still has no evidence whatsoever.

Evidence is irrelevant to “too complicated and illogical”. It’s relevant to supporting a theory, not to say if it’s sensible on the pure theoretical front. You have also missed a core element regarding the nebula argument, as I’ve shown above. You’re assuming that an effect that applies to only one type of device (starship shields) applies to all kinds of force fields.

So, starting with ME, do we have any yields on GARDIAN lasers?
As for Trek, have we seen these torpedoes survive impressive impacts or did we get information on the composition of their hulls?

As I've been saying, we know that GARDIAN is enough to effectively shoot down missiles. Torpedoes are missiles which we have no reason to think are more durable than ordinary missiles. GARDIAN should have no problem shooting them down.

Can’t tell. I’ve not seen evidence that the hulls of photonic torpedoes are tougher than what you’d get on some average missiles.

Clearly, I beg to differ. See above. It is possible to have strong force fields to exist without them being starship shields. Starship shields have to be suited for ships, their sensors, the ability to be reliable (and thus may trade off strength for said reliability) and not harm the crews.

Ok. This doesn't prove torpedo shields would be any different.

Aside from the fact that they could be designed without having to care with radiations and other things that would harm crews, unless a hull was insulated.

I suggested, among other things, that they’re time-limited high-burn very intensive, perhaps unstable in the sense that they’re designed to burst on impact (which would be a flaw for starships), and could also be highly dangerous to living beings but that wouldn’t matter with missiles.

"Suggested"; a roundabout way of saying "I have no evidence" for you, I suppose.

Why do you write it as if I were trying to hide anything?
Let’s make it simpler: if the glow is shields, then it’s a kind of shields capable of resisting phase cannon bursts, as they’re never shot down (that’s another reason of the idea that they’re highly intensive, they can be as they short-lived, but they don’t suit protection standards for crews). As such, unless GARDIAN lasers are in the high gigajoule or very low kiloton range (known firepower for phase cannons), they can’t be shot down and will work.

Wait, it’s actually simpler. The Trek side could easily claim that torpedoes can’t be shot down with anything less than multiple phase cannon shots on full or another torpedo if in one or more episodes where torps are fired, none are intercepted by phase cannons or similarly yielded weapons despite ships possessing them and having no reason not to try.

Perhaps, but there are tons of ways to manage fuel reserves. With torpedoes most likely using fusion if not outright antimatter as part of the propulsion system, we’re contemplating a technology that provides considerable amounts of energy for very little mass (right there, the vehicle doesn’t have to fight against its own mass in fuel to move forth).

Ok, sure. It wouldn't be implausible. It's still unproven. Now prove that torpedoes have enough fuel for the ranges you suggest, already.

Memory Alpha says that a photonic torpedo has a range that is fifty times that of a spatial torpedo.

Won’t make much of a difference if we want to know if a Trek ship can count on lag alone to avoid enemy fire. Quite obviously it won’t if we take as maximum range what we see on screen and forget about common sense.
That said, guiding an object in serene space is different than guiding one when locked into a battle.
I don’t know how or if Trek ships can correct the course of their torpedoes remotely. I don’t what those torpedoes use as part of their sensor suite and if ME ships can jam them (do they use jamming?).

Then, again, in space, there’s little limit to the range. Your limit is how far you can see and guide your projectile. In theory, perfect knowledge of all space parameters would allow a ship to know how, when a where to launch a projectile so that local gravity fields not only don’t disturb the path of the device, but could also be used.

Sure. I prefer the explanation from Mass Effect, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpgxry542M

Now notice something here. A velocity is provided. Fancy that!

Aside from the fact that we’re fortunate enough to have a yield and a speed, what’s the relevance to speed of missiles?

Well, that’s just basic astrophysics amped to the level of science fiction. I am not seeing what is so hard to understand here if not a hard will to reject anything that would give Trek a superior range.

I can't reject anything when you haven't provided any evidence for establishing Star Trek torpedo range in the first place.

OK sure, let’s say it’s a couple kilometers and not more.

The question of a moving target has to be treated differently, and course correction is indeed going to consume fuel. I don’t expect it to be much though, when fusion power is involved.
As such…

"I don't expect it to be much" here meaning "I'm just going to make up stuff", I suppose.

Well you know, we got to be consistent here. If a torpedo has a maximum range of a few kilometers before it expands all its fuel on maintaining that glow and anything else that requires constant powering to an insane hungry level, it’s quite obvious, then, that a design that would allow those systems to be put on standby would dramatically increase the range of the torpedo.

Now, yes, it would mean the basic model we’ve seen in the show would need to be modified and blah blah, so I’m not really wanting to get there.
I’ll leave it to that then, and limit the torps’ range to close visual range tops.

If you haven't watched ENT and aren't that familiar with it, then why in the world are you arguing for it?

Because there’s something to say.

What are those secondary weapons you spoke of and what are their yields?

Disruptor torpedoes are short-ranged torpedoes spammed en masse by fighters. They overwhelm GARDIAN defenses by sheer numbers, and have a special mass effect field that allows them to bypass kinetic barriers. Exact yields are unknown.

Broadside guns are short-ranged mass accelerators. We don't know exact yields of these either, but we do know that a Kilimanjaro-class dreadnought has 76 guns on each side for a total of 152 guns.

Interesting. I wouldn’t extrapolate blindly on the known greater yields, unless we had data on the size and length of those side accelerators, in comparison to the main ones. Did anyone try that?
And isn’t there any greater info in the book you mentioned?

[User1401]

I take it as a no then.
The shockwave was triggered from an exotic thing, so it’s not to be compared to a fusion based supernova.
Plus we’ve seen that when hit by the rock, the relay’s rings were rotating at the same speed as when the SR-2 was shot out of the systems, there was no slowmo going on, clearly. More precisely, if there may have been a slow mo going on as the blue sphere expanded –although we have zero evidence of that– we can safely claim that there was none when the rock hit it.

I meant supernova-level in the destruction it wrought. It wipes out the system it's in. On second thought, though, it's never stated to destroy the planet in the system, just wipe out its population. Fair point about the ring spinning speed, though.

In fact, the very idea that humans considered that moving an asteroid, with the STL propulsion technology they possessed then, and slamming it into a relay would destroy it, speaks of not so impressive materials. Certainly no unobtainium.
The wikia page, while mentioning the quantum boost in toughness, also spoke of a shield. I suppose that a part of the explanation may lie in that.

Asteroids hitting planets can cause extinction-level events. It's not exactly something to sneeze at.

With torpedoes capable of putting 3 km wide kilometers into large asteroids on max yield, we’re obviously dealing with potent weapons. What I see in the video tells me that the mass relay hates momentum with a passion, and torpedoes won’t help much here, but it also tells me that the structure of the relay itself was hardly putting up much of a resistance against the rock. Said rock rather plowed through the relay easily, which speaks of certain clear vulnerabilities. I’m surprised that relays haven’t been destroyed before.
I’d be extremely surprised that the material in question would suck so much against momentum but display formidable thermal resistance against point contact low multi-megaton antimatter bombs.

Again, being hit with an asteroid doesn't mean the relay's durability sucks.

The wikia page clearly suggests that it is special at least in that it can amass a huge amount of energy, which is described as not usual, the reason why its demise would result into such destruction:

“Alpha usually sends and receives mass at the range of a normal secondary relay, but if certain controls are adjusted, it becomes powered by an unprecedented amount of dark energy that could send cargo to sixteen other relays and even across a great distance to the Citadel.”

All relays act the same when destroyed. Here's a quote from the game's codex:

"Destroying a mass relay to stop the Reapers' advance is infeasbile. Although it has recently been proven that mass relays can be destroyed, a ruptured relay liberates enough energy to ruin any terrestrial world in the relay's solar system."

Visuals clearly contradict that. We do know with much assurance that the ship, in both cutscenes, was flying close to the relay, and it’s again verified with the trail left.
What is the canon status of that book?

Again, perspective skews things. The book is canon; it was written by the lead writer of the first two games, and actually published a couple months before the first game.

What about you providence evidence that it would affect other force fields?
Isn’t the entire information we have under the form of: two ships of UFP design couldn’t maintain their respective shields inside the Mutara nebula?
The real information is that we know nothing about the interaction between the gas and static of that nebula and other types of force fields, especially if applied to much smaller objects.

Only if you prove that the nebula will deactivate all types of shields, all types of force fields. I’m afraid you cannot do that with the little information we have.

They state that shields don't function, never specifying "ship shields" 24th century torpedo shields are called "shields" in the example from "Half a Life". Ship shields could be different, but we have no reason to think so.

A shield being a force field, if one is to dump enough energized particles inside said force field, it is totally possible that it could actually become visible by virtue of being choke full of particles. That is the idea; that a torpedo’s shield is jam packed, short lived and dangerous to anything safe the torpedo, since it’s not alive.

"Possible" again here meaning "I have no evidence". There is no precedent for shields acting this way. Wishful thinking does not prove anything.

However, the story of light that shines through the hull, I’m sorry to tell you, that is just not serious.

It could be some kind of exhaust for the torpedo's containment system, maybe? The magnetic containment creates particles that the torpedo needs to get rid of? I'm not trying to prove it, but simply show that it is a consistent, plausible explanation for torpedo glow, removing that advantage from the shield explanation.

Evidence is irrelevant to “too complicated and illogical”. It’s relevant to supporting a theory, not to say if it’s sensible on the pure theoretical front. You have also missed a core element regarding the nebula argument, as I’ve shown above. You’re assuming that an effect that applies to only one type of device (starship shields) applies to all kinds of force fields.

Strawman. No, I am not assuming that it applies to all kinds of force fields. I am assuming that it applies to all shields. When Saavik says "shields won't function", I assume she's telling the truth. Shields won't function. She does not state any exception. If you think torpedo shields are excluded from that, it falls to you to prove it.

Aside from the fact that they could be designed without having to care with radiations and other things that would harm crews, unless a hull was insulated.

Sure. Still no proof that this would mean that torpedo shields are different.

Why do you write it as if I were trying to hide anything?

You've mostly avoided providing evidence when I've asked for it, instead saying stuff like "it should be possible" or "I suggested". Sure, it's possible. Your suggestions might make sense. If you want to keep it as your personal headcanon, at least it's consistent. But it doesn't prove anything for the purposes of a versus debate.

Let’s make it simpler: if the glow is shields, then it’s a kind of shields capable of resisting phase cannon bursts, as they’re never shot down (that’s another reason of the idea that they’re highly intensive, they can be as they short-lived, but they don’t suit protection standards for crews). As such, unless GARDIAN lasers are in the high gigajoule or very low kiloton range (known firepower for phase cannons), they can’t be shot down and will work.

Wait, it’s actually simpler. The Trek side could easily claim that torpedoes can’t be shot down with anything less than multiple phase cannon shots on full or another torpedo if in one or more episodes where torps are fired, none are intercepted by phase cannons or similarly yielded weapons despite ships possessing them and having no reason not to try/

No one ever shooting them down could just mean that targeting systems are not precise enough to accurately hit torpedoes. It doesn't prove that torpedoes can resist phase cannon fire.

Memory Alpha says that a photonic torpedo has a range that is fifty times that of a spatial torpedo.

Won’t make much of a difference if we want to know if a Trek ship can count on lag alone to avoid enemy fire. Quite obviously it won’t if we take as maximum range what we see on screen and forget about common sense.
That said, guiding an object in serene space is different than guiding one when locked into a battle.
I don’t know how or if Trek ships can correct the course of their torpedoes remotely. I don’t what those torpedoes use as part of their sensor suite and if ME ships can jam them (do they use jamming?).

Ok, that's a little better. Still, it just shifts the question over from "what's the range of photonic torpedoes?" to "what's the range of spatial torpedoes?" Ultimately, the latter appears unquantified meaning that the former is still unquantified.

Electronic warfare is mentioned in passing in Mass Effect, but there's not enough info about it to really quantify it.

Aside from the fact that we’re fortunate enough to have a yield and a speed, what’s the relevance to speed of missiles?

It needs to be fast enough to get to its target before its target moves away, simple.

OK sure, let’s say it’s a couple kilometers and not more.

...ok.

Well you know, we got to be consistent here. If a torpedo has a maximum range of a few kilometers before it expands all its fuel on maintaining that glow and anything else that requires constant powering to an insane hungry level, it’s quite obvious, then, that a design that would allow those systems to be put on standby would dramatically increase the range of the torpedo.

Now, yes, it would mean the basic model we’ve seen in the show would need to be modified and blah blah, so I’m not really wanting to get there.
I’ll leave it to that then, and limit the torps’ range to close visual range tops.

Alright then, seems reasonable. Thus, Mass Effect should have superior weapon's range (that does leave the detail that Star Trek ships can warp in within weapons range. Mass Effect ships can drop out of FTL far beyond Star Trek weapons range, as well).

Interesting. I wouldn’t extrapolate blindly on the known greater yields, unless we had data on the size and length of those side accelerators, in comparison to the main ones. Did anyone try that?
And isn’t there any greater info in the book you mentioned?

No extrapolation has been done, to my knowledge. As far as "greater info", the broadside guns are supposed to be imbedded in the hull and be as long as 40% of the ship's width. Here's a image of a Systems Alliance dreadnought (it's unknown whether this is the Kilimanjaro class or the older Everest class. More likely the Kilimanjaro, since there are more of them)



(the larger ship on the bottom)

It could be possible to get a rough estimate, comparing the ship's length (somewhere between 800-1000m) and the minimum firepower of its gun (at least 38 kilotons) to its width to determine the firepower of the broadside guns.

[Mr. Oragahn]

In fact, the very idea that humans considered that moving an asteroid, with the STL propulsion technology they possessed then, and slamming it into a relay would destroy it, speaks of not so impressive materials. Certainly no unobtainium.
The wikia page, while mentioning the quantum boost in toughness, also spoke of a shield. I suppose that a part of the explanation may lie in that.

Asteroids hitting planets can cause extinction-level events. It's not exactly something to sneeze at.

Sure... when they hit at several kilometers per second.
Don't you feel like we're a bit far from the mark as far as the Alpha relay is concerned? :)

With torpedoes capable of putting 3 km wide kilometers into large asteroids on max yield, we’re obviously dealing with potent weapons. What I see in the video tells me that the mass relay hates momentum with a passion, and torpedoes won’t help much here, but it also tells me that the structure of the relay itself was hardly putting up much of a resistance against the rock. Said rock rather plowed through the relay easily, which speaks of certain clear vulnerabilities. I’m surprised that relays haven’t been destroyed before.
I’d be extremely surprised that the material in question would suck so much against momentum but display formidable thermal resistance against point contact low multi-megaton antimatter bombs.

Again, being hit with an asteroid doesn't mean the relay's durability sucks.

Not a useful comment.
I already spoke of size, mass, speed and momentum, after looking at the video.
The impactor is imposing, but it's nowhere that powerful.
Like it or not, but it actually doesn't take too much to destroy such a relay. Thus far, whatever the codex says, the material from the game clearly paints a much different picture.

The wikia page clearly suggests that it is special at least in that it can amass a huge amount of energy, which is described as not usual, the reason why its demise would result into such destruction:

“Alpha usually sends and receives mass at the range of a normal secondary relay, but if certain controls are adjusted, it becomes powered by an unprecedented amount of dark energy that could send cargo to sixteen other relays and even across a great distance to the Citadel.”

All relays act the same when destroyed. Here's a quote from the game's codex:

"Destroying a mass relay to stop the Reapers' advance is infeasbile. Although it has recently been proven that mass relays can be destroyed, a ruptured relay liberates enough energy to ruin any terrestrial world in the relay's solar system."

Aside from being self contradictory, the text is best rationalized as it's infeasible to blast a relay without hurting the systems it lies in.
However, considering the OP, this discussion about destroying relays is only relevant if Trek forces enter the ME universe through the wormholes. Considering the fleet sizes for ME and the proximity to high profile worlds (those ME fleets are literally dumped at the doorsteps of those prime worlds), there isn't much left to discuss, is there?
Trek ships aren't advanced enough to compensate for the large amount of ships from ME.
Their phase cannons and similar disruptors aren't even as powerful as the main guns on the most powerful ME ships, which already come in greater quantities, in greater sizes, with more range and so on.

Visuals clearly contradict that. We do know with much assurance that the ship, in both cutscenes, was flying close to the relay, and it’s again verified with the trail left.
What is the canon status of that book?

Again, perspective skews things.

Certainly not in this case, and it's fairly easy to know how and find yard stones to use as points of reference. In the DLC cutscene, we have two viewpoints to determine the distance between the SR-2 and the relay, as the ship leaves a bubble where it was. We also have the advantage of knowing that a ship launched by a relay follows the direction of the relay, at least at first when it's still in the system. It means the launching trajectory follows a vector defined by the direction which the two relay's arms point into. We see that bubble effect twice although there's one single launch bubble, because of the cut from one angle to another. The first shot lets us know where the bubble appeared in relation to the relay's length, which distance wise is quite close to the glowing ovoid center, and inside the gap between the two arms. The second shot shows how far from the relay the bubble is, because we know where the bubble would have been located if the ship had to place itself between the two arms to be launched.

There's an even simpler method : the length and width of the energy arcs. Unless for some reason the arc is extremely large when it leaves the glowing center and then tapers dramatically to be shrunk to a fraction of its original width, we can see that the ship really comes close to the relay.

The book is canon; it was written by the lead writer of the first two games, and actually published a couple months before the first game.

Does that make it superior canon or lower canon? Is there any hierarchy?

They state that shields don't function, never specifying "ship shields".

Would they really bother though? Contextually, these are crews, it is possible that they would just say shields knowing full well that their respective captains would understand that they're talking about their ship's shields. Over the entire course of the show, they keep saying shields up, down, deactivated, down to, etc. while rarely saying "ship shields".

Why do you write it as if I were trying to hide anything?

You've mostly avoided providing evidence when I've asked for it, instead saying stuff like "it should be possible" or "I suggested". Sure, it's possible. Your suggestions might make sense. If you want to keep it as your personal headcanon, at least it's consistent. But it doesn't prove anything for the purposes of a versus debate.

I didn't avoid providing any evidence because I made it clear it was based on logic and indirect. Otherwise I'd have gladly presented evidence, as I had no reason to withhold it.

Ok, that's a little better. Still, it just shifts the question over from "what's the range of photonic torpedoes?" to "what's the range of spatial torpedoes?" Ultimately, the latter appears unquantified meaning that the former is still unquantified.

Electronic warfare is mentioned in passing in Mass Effect, but there's not enough info about it to really quantify it.

Good, now we're stuck with two unknown on either sides.

Interesting. I wouldn’t extrapolate blindly on the known greater yields, unless we had data on the size and length of those side accelerators, in comparison to the main ones. Did anyone try that?
And isn’t there any greater info in the book you mentioned?

No extrapolation has been done, to my knowledge. As far as "greater info", the broadside guns are supposed to be imbedded in the hull and be as long as 40% of the ship's width. Here's a image of a Systems Alliance dreadnought (it's unknown whether this is the Kilimanjaro class or the older Everest class. More likely the Kilimanjaro, since there are more of them)



(the larger ship on the bottom)

It could be possible to get a rough estimate, comparing the ship's length (somewhere between 800-1000m) and the minimum firepower of its gun (at least 38 kilotons) to its width to determine the firepower of the broadside guns.

Without knowing the type of shell, the bore diameter, the power diverted to the side guns, their refire rate, etc.?
We could suggest that a full broadside salvo has a low kilotonish fraction of the main gun's capacity, perhaps.
However, I'd like to know how the heck they count on aiming those fixed guns against ships that are so mobile as those in Trek. Speed of the projectile doesn't suffice to guarantee a hit. How long does it take to fire? Is it completely automatized as if you were playing quake with a railgun and a cheat bot that automatically fired anytime a foe crossed the crosshair?

[Picard]

There are some notes I wrote down about Mass Effect:

LENGTHS

Sovereign : 2000 m
Geth ship: m
other Reapers:
- destroyer – 160 m
- dreadnought – 2000 m
Turian cruiser: 454 m
Systems Alliance cruiser: 440 m
Normandy: 145 m
Normandy SR2: 170 m
Everest class dreadnought: 888 m
fighter/interceptor: 9,5 m
Collector cruiser: 1452 m
Asari dreadnought: 1000 m

Crew
Asari
Destiny Ascension – 10 000
corvette - 10
Systems Alliance
cruiser - 300
corvette – 10
Turian Hierarchy
corvette – 10
frigate – 90
cruiser – 300

DE weapons bypass mass barriers
particle beam has more KE, ion beam more DE
both Thanix, particle and ion cannons bypass barriers to some degree

weapons yields
mass driver
one shot every 5 seconds for 800 m dreadnought
mass driver 90% of ship's length
1000-meter-dreadnought (900 m): 60,5 kt
20 kg slug
5031,25 km/s
800-meter dreadnought (720 m): 38 kt
20 kg slug
4025 km/s
500-meter cruiser (450 m): 15,13 kt
20 kg slug
2515,625 km/s
400-meter cruiser (360 m): 9,68 kt
20 kg slug
2012,5 km/s
100-meter frigate (90 m): 0,605 kt
20 kg slug
503,125 km/s
THANIX
Reaper, spinal: 132 – 454 kt (242 most likely)
one shot every 15 seconds

weapons per ship
systems alliance
Kilimanjaro class dreadnought
1 coaxial cannon
156 broadside cannons

reapers – 8 746 c
Citadel races – 12 ly/day (4383 c)

Time to build a ship
Systems Alliance
dreadnought - ~1 year

Systems Alliance – 8 fleets
1 fleet – 50 ships (24 cruisers, 1 dreadnought, 25 frigattes)
400 ships total

[Mr. Oragahn]

There are some notes I wrote down about Mass Effect:

LENGTHS

Sovereign : 2000 m
Geth ship: m
other Reapers:
- destroyer – 160 m
- dreadnought – 2000 m
Turian cruiser: 454 m
Systems Alliance cruiser: 440 m
Normandy: 145 m
Normandy SR2: 170 m
Everest class dreadnought: 888 m
fighter/interceptor: 9,5 m
Collector cruiser: 1452 m
Asari dreadnought: 1000 m

Crew
Asari
Destiny Ascension – 10 000
corvette - 10
Systems Alliance
cruiser - 300
corvette – 10
Turian Hierarchy
corvette – 10
frigate – 90
cruiser – 300

DE weapons bypass mass barriers
particle beam has more KE, ion beam more DE
both Thanix, particle and ion cannons bypass barriers to some degree

weapons yields
mass driver
one shot every 5 seconds for 800 m dreadnought
mass driver 90% of ship's length
1000-meter-dreadnought (900 m): 60,5 kt
20 kg slug
5031,25 km/s
800-meter dreadnought (720 m): 38 kt
20 kg slug
4025 km/s
500-meter cruiser (450 m): 15,13 kt
20 kg slug
2515,625 km/s
400-meter cruiser (360 m): 9,68 kt
20 kg slug
2012,5 km/s
100-meter frigate (90 m): 0,605 kt
20 kg slug
503,125 km/s
THANIX
Reaper, spinal: 132 – 454 kt (242 most likely)
one shot every 15 seconds

weapons per ship
systems alliance
Kilimanjaro class dreadnought
1 coaxial cannon
156 broadside cannons

reapers – 8 746 c
Citadel races – 12 ly/day (4383 c)

Time to build a ship
Systems Alliance
dreadnought - ~1 year

Systems Alliance – 8 fleets
1 fleet – 50 ships (24 cruisers, 1 dreadnought, 25 frigattes)
400 ships total

No size for the Geth ships?
Are some of these numbers purely extrapolated (if yes you may want to use a colour key of some kind).

[Picard]

Yeah... forgot about that.

Geth cruiser would be some 300 - 350 meters long, going by Battle of the Citadel, and Dreadnought should be 1800 - 2100 meters long.

And yes, most numbers are extrapolated... I got length for Turain and SA cruiser somewhere, as well as for both Normandies. Only numbers I remember being stated in-game is 2000 meters for Reaper dreadnought, 160 meters for Reaper destroyer, 800-1000 meters for Council dreadnoughts (888 m for Everest class dreadnought), and that's it.

As for weapons, I'm not sure if all ships use same slugs.

[Lucky]

You may want to add this site to your favorites. It is where most of us get the transcripts for the Star Trek episodes.
http://www.chakoteya.net/index.html

I said "ok". I knew it already.

You put a question mark after the Okay, and that made it seem you had an unasked question or did not expect the evidence.

By "primary defense" I meant primary combat defense, which they're not, shields are used instead. Is there a reference that shows phasers, disruptors, torpedoes, etc. bypass the navigational deflectors rather than directly overpowering them?

Photon torpedos most certain have features that let them at least try to ignore shields of any type rather then overcome them through brute force. This is best illustrated in Star Trek: Generations.

Worf: "Captain, they are now locking lasers on us."

Riker: "Lasers?!?"

Worf: "Yes, sir."

Picard: "Lasers can't even penetrate our navigation shields. Don't they know that?"

Riker:  "Regulations do call for yellow alert."

Picard:  "Hmm, a very old regulation.  Well, make it so Number One.  And,
reduce speed . . . drop main shields, as well."

Riker:  "May I ask why, sir?"

Picard:  "In case we decide to surrender to them, Number One."

Riker:  (laugh)

Worf:   (growl) 

The above quote would imply that weapons like Phasers and Disruptors have anti-Shield properties. This would make sense because the navigational deflectors job is to clear a path for a ship traveling faster then light, and that means the navigational deflector has to move every subatomic particle(like photons, proton, electrons, hydrogen, asteroids, ect) out of the way of the ship, or else the ship will basically be destroyed by a process similar to sandblasting.

Weapons like Photon Torpedos, Plasma Torpedos, Phasers, and Disruptors also seem to be faster then light at least some of the time.

I refer you to the cannon example I provided before. In the 19th century, armies possessed cannons. In the 20th century, armies also possessed cannon artillery. But 20th century artillery possesses characteristics, such as higher velocity, depleted uranium ammunition, etc., that doesn't apply to 19th century artillery. A technology possessing certain characteristics doesn't prove that similar technology from centuries ago had the same characteristics. The characteristics of the centuries older technology must be proven separately. The principles, or "role", may be the same, but that doesn't mean that the full capabilities are the same.

I will note that 22nd century examples would be valid if we were discussing 23rd or 24th century techology, as long as we have no reason to think technology had changed and improved in that time. Also, weaknesses of 23rd or 24th century technology likely apply to 22nd century technology, since it would be absurd for technology to have regressed between the time periods.

And a lot of technology has gone virtually unchanged in a hundred years. One thing to keep in mind is that the Vulcans had been in space for hundreds of years before humans, had been helping humans, and had warp 7 ships as apposed to Earth's first warp 5 ship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_rifle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-materiel_rifle

Navigational deflector has to be able to deal with the expected stresses of the warp factor it is designed for no matter what era. This is why I was bringing up the sub-lightr shuttle's capabilities. A Warp 5 ship has to be able to deal with threats far greater then anything a sub-light shuttle will ever have to face under normal conditions.

Do they directly state that lowering mass is something the systems don't normally do? If not, then it certainly proves that mass lowering using the warp drive or navigational deflector is possible, and makes mass lightening to aid deflection a plausible explanation for why navigational deflectors can withstand impacts at many times the speed of light, while not making a difference against weapons with much lower energy.

LAFORGE: The moon will hit its perigee in ten hours. Now, we match its trajectory, increase emitter coolant rate so we can apply continuous warp-equivalent power nine to the tractor beam. We can push it for nearly seven hours and I think that just might do it. But, there's a problem. 

DATA: The Enterprise will be dangerously close to the atmosphere. 

LAFORGE: That's the problem. 

Q: This is incredible. 

LAFORGE: You see something here, Q? 

Q: I think I just hurt my back. I'm feeling pain. I don't like it. What's the right thing to say? Ow? 

LAFORGE + DATA: Ow. 

Q: Ow! I can't straighten up. 

DATA: Medical assistance to Engineering. 

LAFORGE: Q, I've got a few people down on Bre'el Four who are going to be hurt 

Q: Yes, yes, your marvellous plan will not only tear the moon to pieces but your precious ship as well. 

LAFORGE: You got a better idea? 

Q: I would certainly begin by examining the cause and not the symptom. 

LAFORGE: We've done that, Q, and there's no way to 

Q: This is obviously the result of a large celestial object passing through at near right angles to the plane of the star system. Probably a black hole. 

DATA: Can you recommend a way to counter the effect? 

Q: Simple. Change the gravitational constant of the universe. 

LAFORGE: What? 

Q: Change the gravitational constant of the universe, thereby altering the mass of the asteroid. 

LAFORGE: Redefine gravity? How am I supposed to do that? 

Q: You just do it. Where's that Doctor, anyway? 

DATA: Geordi is trying to say that changing the gravitational constant of the universe is beyond our capabilities. 

Q: Oh. In that case, never mind. 

(Crusher enters) 

Q: Ah, Doctor Crusher. I see Starfleet has shipped you back into exile. 

DATA: Q says he has hurt his back. 

CRUSHER: Ah ha. Well, if I didn't see it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it. According to this, he has classic back trauma. Muscle spasms. 

Q: I've been under a lot of pressure lately. Family problems. 

CRUSHER: Well. don't expect too much sympathy from me. You've been a pain in our backside often enough. 

Q: Your bedside manner is admirable, Doctor. I'm sure your patients recover quickly just to get away from you. 

LAFORGE: You know, this might work. We can't change the gravitational constant of the universe, but if we wrap a low level warp field around that moon, we could reduce its gravitational constant. Make it lighter so we can push it. 

Q: Glad I could help. Ow. I think. 

CRUSHER: Now what? 

Q: There's something wrong with my stomach. 

CRUSHER: It hurts? 

Q: It's making noises. 

CRUSHER: Maybe you're hungry.
__________


[Observation lounge]

Q: The Calamarain are not very hospitable creatures. They exist as swirls of ionised gas. 
PICARD: What did you do to them, Q? 

Q: Nothing bizarre, nothing grotesque. 
RIKER: You tormented them. 

Q: A subjective term, Riker. One creature's torment, is another creature's delight. They simply have no sense of humour, a character flaw with which you can personally identify. 

RIKER: I say we turn him over to them. 

Q: Oh, I take it back. You do have a sense of humour. A dreadful one at that. 

RIKER: I'm serious. 

PICARD: Of course. You knew this would happen, didn't you? 

Q: One can never anticipate the Calamarain. They're very intelligent, but very flighty. 

PICARD: Yes, but you must have so many enemies. Certainly you knew that once you became mortal some of them might look you up. 

Q: It had occurred to me. 

PICARD: And for all your protestations of friendship, your real reason for being here is protection. 

Q: You're very smart, Jean-Luc, but I know human beings. They're all sopping over with compassion and forgiveness. They can't wait to absolve almost any offence. It's an inherent weakness in the breed. 

PICARD: On the contrary, it is a strength. 

Q: You call it what you will, but I think you'll protect me even though I've tortured you now and again. 

RIKER: Fighting off all the species you've insulted would be a full time mission. That's not the one I signed up for. 

PICARD: Indeed. Human or not, I want no part of you. We will deposit you at the first starbase. Let them deal with you. 

Q: But I could be a valuable member of the team. I'm human, I can learn. 

DATA: He has provided important theoretical guidance for Geordi's analysis of the Bre'el satellite, Captain. 

TROI: It seems you have an advocate, Q. 

DATA: I am merely stating a fact, Counsellor. 

PICARD: Mister La Forge, your status? 

LAFORGE [OC]: I've been putting together a programme to extend the forward lobe of the warp field. The field coils

[Engineering]

LAFORGE: Aren't designed to envelop such a large volume. But I'm attempting to modify their alignment parameters. 

DATA [OC]: Maintaining field integrity will be difficult, Geordi. 

LAFORGE: I'm pretty sure we can do it manually. The moon will come to its perigee in fourteen minutes.

Navigational deflector was not used in Deja Q to alter then gravitational constant of the universe. There is no reason to think shield have mass lowering effects.

If they normally altered the gravitational constant of the universe then they would not have needed Q's help.

Memory Alpha has some nice screen caps of what the warp fields normally do.
You will note that they do the same thing for both the NX-01 and the Enterprise-D. You will note the warp field's job is to warp space/time around the ship.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_field

DAX: It is no ordinary wormhole. My analysis suggests that it isn't even a natural phenomenon. 

BASHIR: Not natural? You mean it was constructed? 

DAX: It's very possible whoever made the Orbs also created this wormhole. 

O'BRIEN: The Cardassians are leaving their position on a course toward the Denorios Belt. 

KIRA: Mister O'Brien, what would it take to move this station to the mouth of the wormhole? 

O'BRIEN: This isn't a starship, Major. We've got six working thrusters to power us and that's it. A hundred sixty million kilometre trip would take two months. 

KIRA: It has to be there tomorrow. 

O'BRIEN: That's not possible, sir. 

KIRA: That wormhole might just reshape the future of this entire quadrant. The Bajorans have to stake a claim to it. And I have to admit that claim will be a lot stronger if there's a Federation presence to back it up. 

DAX: Couldn't you modify the subspace field output of the deflector generators just enough to create a low-level field around the station? 

O'BRIEN: So we could lower the inertial mass? 

DAX: If you can make the station lighter, those six thrusters will be all the power we'd need. 

O'BRIEN: This whole station could break apart like an egg if it doesn't work. 

DAX: Even if it does work, we're still going to need help from Starfleet once we get there. 

O'BRIEN: The Enterprise is still the nearest starship. They could reach us in two days. 

DAX: We should advise Starfleet that we will require their assistance. 

KIRA: You have Ops, Mister O'Brien. Lieutenant, you're with me. 

DAX: Aye, sir. 

KIRA: You too, Doc. Time to be a hero. 

BASHIR: Yes, sir.

I don't know of anything that shows Deep Space: 9 has a navigational deflector.

Secondly they had to alter the shields in some way to do something they did not normally do, I.E. alter the mass of an object.

In both cases they had the problem of being able to generate more power then was needed, but the conventional systems could not handle it.

Need I remind you of the battle in "Nemesis"? We have two examples: a Romulan warbird's nacelle impacts on the Enterprise, significantly depleting shields. Then the Enterprise rams the Scimitar, when just previously the Scimitar was stated to have its shields at 70%. Where were the navigational deflectors that just shrug off high C impacts, then?

We don't even know if the Scimitar had its shield turned on when it was rammed. It would be perfectly in character for its captain to have turned them off
.
The Nemisis ramming incident could be an example of navigational deflectors canceling each other out, or the damage seen could be the result of the navigational deflectors trying to effect the ships. We know there are ways to counter navigational deflectors. Star Trek powers like the United Federation of Planets and Romulan Star Empire use super materials like Duranium and Tritanium to build their ships, then add things like structural integrity fields, and then the drive systems surround them with warp fields. Using an exotic thing for an example, and then expecting it to behave like a mundane thing is rather silly.

Secondly there is the problem of ships in Star Trek rarely if ever being shown to scale. You often have things shown at about 1 to 100 or more scale such as in "Suddenly Human".

"I'm pretty sure" isn't evidence. At best, modern Earth could move a relay verrrrry slowly. Perhaps 22nd century Earth and other factions could do the same, but they would be sitting ducks for the Mass Effect factions to attack. If you want to claim that the 22nd century Trek factions can move mass relays fast enough to make the tactic viable, it's up to you to provide evidence.

Why would the Star Trek Factions not be able to move a Mass Relay?

You do realize that the NX-01 was a peace of underpowered and primitive smurf for its time, and that all the other powers of its time have notably larger, more powerful, and more technologically advanced ships? Vulcan ships for example are much larger, more powerful, faster, and more technologically advanced
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schem ... _ships.htm

[User1401]

Sure... when they hit at several kilometers per second.
Don't you feel like we're a bit far from the mark as far as the Alpha relay is concerned? :)

Considering that the asteroid was more than a dozen kilometers in diameter, it likely was moving a several kilometers a second.

Aside from being self contradictory, the text is best rationalized as it's infeasible to blast a relay without hurting the systems it lies in.
However, considering the OP, this discussion about destroying relays is only relevant if Trek forces enter the ME universe through the wormholes. Considering the fleet sizes for ME and the proximity to high profile worlds (those ME fleets are literally dumped at the doorsteps of those prime worlds), there isn't much left to discuss, is there?
Trek ships aren't advanced enough to compensate for the large amount of ships from ME.
Their phase cannons and similar disruptors aren't even as powerful as the main guns on the most powerful ME ships, which already come in greater quantities, in greater sizes, with more range and so on.

What's self-contradictory? The idea that the Alpha Relay's unique energy level is what caused its system's destruction originated from you, not the codex.

And I never said that the wormholes open right next to prime worlds, did I? I guess we could just say that the wormholes open on the edges of each faction's territory.

Certainly not in this case, and it's fairly easy to know how and find yard stones to use as points of reference. In the DLC cutscene, we have two viewpoints to determine the distance between the SR-2 and the relay, as the ship leaves a bubble where it was. We also have the advantage of knowing that a ship launched by a relay follows the direction of the relay, at least at first when it's still in the system. It means the launching trajectory follows a vector defined by the direction which the two relay's arms point into. We see that bubble effect twice although there's one single launch bubble, because of the cut from one angle to another. The first shot lets us know where the bubble appeared in relation to the relay's length, which distance wise is quite close to the glowing ovoid center, and inside the gap between the two arms. The second shot shows how far from the relay the bubble is, because we know where the bubble would have been located if the ship had to place itself between the two arms to be launched.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLF1m3lK6dI

You know, I'm not even sure what you're going on about here. At 2:27 we can see that the relay is many, many times longer than the Normandy SR-2. Is it really that hard to think that the relay is 15 km long based on that?

Does that make it superior canon or lower canon? Is there any hierarchy?

There is no official hierarchy. It's simply canon.

Would they really bother though? Contextually, these are crews, it is possible that they would just say shields knowing full well that their respective captains would understand that they're talking about their ship's shields. Over the entire course of the show, they keep saying shields up, down, deactivated, down to, etc. while rarely saying "ship shields".

That's beside the point. The point is that there is no evidence that regular, ship-mounted shields and the hypothetical torpedo shields operate differently. I mean, you can pretend that they are different so you can maintain consistent head-canon, and more power to you; but the fact is there's no evidence for the purpose of a vs. debate.

I didn't avoid providing any evidence because I made it clear it was based on logic and indirect. Otherwise I'd have gladly presented evidence, as I had no reason to withhold it.

So, you admit to not having evidence? At least you're being honest now.

However, I'd like to know how the heck they count on aiming those fixed guns against ships that are so mobile as those in Trek. Speed of the projectile doesn't suffice to guarantee a hit. How long does it take to fire? Is it completely automatized as if you were playing quake with a railgun and a cheat bot that automatically fired anytime a foe crossed the crosshair?

The main gun takes fires every 2 seconds, at least.

You put a question mark after the Okay, and that made it seem you had an unasked question or did not expect the evidence.

The question mark was there because I wasn't sure what your point was.

Photon torpedos most certain have features that let them at least try to ignore shields of any type rather then overcome them through brute force. This is best illustrated in Star Trek: Generations.

And that's irrelevant, because it applies to shields just as much as nav deflectors and you need the shield's frequency to do it in the first place.

The above quote would imply that weapons like Phasers and Disruptors have anti-Shield properties. This would make sense because the navigational deflectors job is to clear a path for a ship traveling faster then light, and that means the navigational deflector has to move every subatomic particle(like photons, proton, electrons, hydrogen, asteroids, ect) out of the way of the ship, or else the ship will basically be destroyed by a process similar to sandblasting.

No, it simply implies that laser technology in ST -- especially from such a weak race -- is inferior to phaser/photon torpedoes. Is it inferior because it's simply weaker? Is it inferior because phasers/photorps somehow bypass deflectors in a way lasers can't? There's no evidence for the latter. Moreover, lasers have been used against ST ships before, such as the Borg cutting laser.

Weapons like Photon Torpedos, Plasma Torpedos, Phasers, and Disruptors also seem to be faster then light at least some of the time.

Certainly not all of the time, which they would have to be for you to have a point here.

And a lot of technology has gone virtually unchanged in a hundred years. One thing to keep in mind is that the Vulcans had been in space for hundreds of years before humans, had been helping humans, and had warp 7 ships as apposed to Earth's first warp 5 ship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_rifle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-materiel_rifle

Navigational deflector has to be able to deal with the expected stresses of the warp factor it is designed for no matter what era. This is why I was bringing up the sub-lightr shuttle's capabilities. A Warp 5 ship has to be able to deal with threats far greater then anything a sub-light shuttle will ever have to face under normal conditions.

That's all well and good, but it still doesn't prove anything for 22nd century deflectors.

I don't know of anything that shows Deep Space: 9 has a navigational deflector.

Secondly they had to alter the shields in some way to do something they did not normally do, I.E. alter the mass of an object.

In both cases they had the problem of being able to generate more power then was needed, but the conventional systems could not handle it.

Alright, the way you first put it seemed to be supporting my argument. In any case, my original argument is unaffected; ST certainly possesses mass-lightening technology and it's a more rational assumption that nav deflectors somehow incorporate that to deflect FTL projectiles instead of the nav deflector simply tanking all the energy from the FTL projectiles and yet the ship still gets damaged from energy and kinetic impacts on a far, far lower scale.

We don't even know if the Scimitar had its shield turned on when it was rammed. It would be perfectly in character for its captain to have turned them off.

Yes, yes we do know. It's stated just a few seconds prior that the Nemesis' shields are at 70%. No indication is given that Shinzon lowered them.

The Nemisis ramming incident could be an example of navigational deflectors canceling each other out, or the damage seen could be the result of the navigational deflectors trying to effect the ships. We know there are ways to counter navigational deflectors. Star Trek powers like the United Federation of Planets and Romulan Star Empire use super materials like Duranium and Tritanium to build their ships, then add things like structural integrity fields, and then the drive systems surround them with warp fields. Using an exotic thing for an example, and then expecting it to behave like a mundane thing is rather silly.

Wouldn't there be a moment where the deflectors/shields grind against each other, momentarily stopping the Ent-E's movement then?

Secondly there is the problem of ships in Star Trek rarely if ever being shown to scale. You often have things shown at about 1 to 100 or more scale such as in "Suddenly Human".

Except Data leapt from the Enterprise to the Scimitar afterwards, so there had to be some accuracy to the scale of the distances.

Why would the Star Trek Factions not be able to move a Mass Relay?

You do realize that the NX-01 was a peace of underpowered and primitive smurf for its time, and that all the other powers of its time have notably larger, more powerful, and more technologically advanced ships? Vulcan ships for example are much larger, more powerful, faster, and more technologically advanced
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schem ... _ships.htm

Stop avoiding the burden of proof. If you want to say that Trek factions can move a Mass Relay, you have to provide evidence of them moving things on that scale in a timely fashion. And other races in comparison to the NX-01 would only be relevant if you had proved the moving capabilities of the NX-01 in the first place.