Starfleet Jedi

So, I'm in a debate with Prophet of Truth/Wisdom. We got into a mess over the issues, but I managed to condense it all into one post. For the most part, I wanted to get an opinion on it; is my argument failing at any point?


http://www.asvs.us/index.php/topic/992- ... #entry8500

And of course, what of the rest of the debate in general? I still can't understand what's wrong with that Jason lad.

I'm not sure about your arguements, especially "The Pegasus", which seems the weakest of all of them. First off, if nothing else, get your facts straight, or wait to address Prophet's arguements when you do have them before going off on statements he can use to tear you apart later on with red herring strawman fallicies. For one thing, Riker by that point in time knew that the asteroid had "several" volcanic fissures, as per Data's assessments. Also you don't demonstrate any facts in evidence of the size of the Pegasus asteroid, or if as people like Wong like to claim, the thing was "mostly hollow" (which it is not). Also Wong is using a number where he takes the narrowest part of the asteroid, and then uses that as thought it were the widest possible diameters. This is not true, either. Even Warsies, like Brian Young, have calculated that the asteroid is at least 8.6 km on the long axis, while on SB.com it was calculated to be slightly longer than that and slightly wider than Wong's 5 km. On the Strek vs SWars forum 5 years ago, it was calculated that the asteroid could be as much as 18-33 km on the long axis, and 12-18 wide on the short axis.

Of course a lot of the scaling issues with that asteroid stem from a lack of consensus on how to scale the asteroid. Some use the scene of the E-D entering into the asteroid, then try to figure out which of the several various tunnel openings in a big, jagged fissure is the one the E-D went into. Two of them look virtually alike, but one is larger than the other; this is the one the Warsies or SGers or whomever wants ST to be weak pick since it reduces the asteroids overall length. The smaller one obviously makes it larger. Also do we scale to the E-D, or the scene of the 1.31 km x 1 km D'Deridex warbird seen doing a close flyby of the asteroid? The warbird obviously goes a long way towards making the asteroid larger than the 642 meter E-D.

So you may wish to take some time here and do a search on the Pegasus asteroid issue since it is well-discussed. Also for TOS planet devastation by a single examples, you may also wish to look up "Bread and circuses", and "Whom Gods Destroy" where the subject is brought up again in various contexts. For TNG examples, look up "The Chase" and "A Matter of Time" (a discussion is going on in a thread currently on this and other high-power incidents in Trek).
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:I'm not sure about your arguements, especially "The Pegasus", which seems the weakest of all of them. First off, if nothing else, get your facts straight, or wait to address Prophet's arguements when you do have them before going off on statements he can use to tear you apart later on with red herring strawman fallicies. For one thing, Riker by that point in time knew that the asteroid had "several" volcanic fissures, as per Data's assessments.

Um...what would that have told Riker? Volcanic fissues don't have to be particularly large, nor was there any visual or indicated volcanic activity on the asteroid. Nor do I know of any volcanic fissue that is large enough and deep enough to allow starship to penetrate it into the core. Or a torpedo for that matter.

Also you don't demonstrate any facts in evidence of the size of the Pegasus asteroid, or if as people like Wong like to claim, the thing was "mostly hollow" (which it is not). Also Wong is using a number where he takes the narrowest part of the asteroid, and then uses that as thought it were the widest possible diameters. This is not true, either. Even Warsies, like Brian Young, have calculated that the asteroid is at least 8.6 km on the long axis, while on SB.com it was calculated to be slightly longer than that and slightly wider than Wong's 5 km. On the Strek vs SWars forum 5 years ago, it was calculated that the asteroid could be as much as 18-33 km on the long axis, and 12-18 wide on the short axis.

Actually he brought it up and I've scaled it before, got about 10 km, which if I remember (I might be wrong), I think he said 10 km.

Nor do I understand what he'd gain from trying to adjust the size. It wouldn't solve the answer, since from my understanding, it would either hardly affect it or increase the size, which makes his argument more difficult.

Furthermore, I'm not sure how this solves his argument. Thus far, he has yet to reveal just where he got his idea that it wouldn't take much energy to destroy the asteroid. I suspect he got it from Wong's calculator, probably because he sought the information from old threads where said asteroid was discussed and took the point that someone tried to make with the calculator and the asteroid's size.

Unfortunately, I don't think he understands what the flaw is with that calculator. So either now he has to do the caclulations to prove that the torpedoes are lower yield based on surface detonations or he'll have to grant that he can't prove his claim.

But you did point out a flaw in my argument, though I think it to be a small one. If he attempts to use that, I'll take care of it in short order.

Here is the dialog from just before Riker's torpedo statements:

RIKER: Geordi's found something.
LAFORGE: There's a subspace resonance signature coming from that asteroid, sir. It could be the warp core of the Pegasus.
PRESSMAN: I think he's right. I recognise some of the variance patterns.
PICARD: Put the asteroid on the main viewscreen.
DATA: I have confirmed Geordi's readings. The resonance signature is originating from somewhere beneath the asteroid's surface.
PRESSMAN: Beneath the surface? How's that possible?
DATA: This asteroid contains several deep chasms large enough for a starship to enter. It is possible the Pegasus drifted into the asteroid's gravitational field and was pulled down into one of the fissures.


So Riker does know about this, especially since he is one of three people who are looking over at the data coming in on the bridge science console's readout dispay. The one thing he wouldn't have time to do is to figure out how much exactly it would take to destroy the asteroid, so he may be over estimating the number of torpedoes required (note that no specific number is given precisely, Riker just says "it would take most of our photon torpedoes"). So Riker has to figure out in a matter of seconds how much of the ship's torpedo loadout has to be expended to utterly destroy the asteroid and the ship inside it so that there is absolutely no way that neither the Romulans, nor Pressman can get their hands on it.

Another thing to tie this into in making the point of the asteroid calculator flawed assumptions is this: in VOY's "Rise", a single torpedo can vaporize a nickel-iron asteroid hundreds of meters wide such that only at most 1 cm wide debris is left. Also, why not assume vaporization, or melting? Why assume that the asteroid is broken up into 10 meter chunks of debris?
-Mike

Those are not mine, but were used by vivftp I think. Iirc, they support the +8 km long asteroid measurement.
Also, good luck dealing with Halo's wank. You probably know where to find the appropriate SBC threads about Halo calcs though.
Here's some few links, just in case:

First Strike, p.256: A modified plasma turret (Ascendent Justice's) fired at an asteroid (low MT?).
Asteroid destroyed by one of Ascendent Justice's weapons, calculated by Buugipopuu.
Cases of nukes and other weapons used effectively against the Covenant.
Halo firepowers?, Feb 19th 2009, 12:38pm, 4 pages.
Low 1~2 digits megaton impact, object plows through a Covenant Carrier.

Be sure to expand the posts into the complete display of the threads.

EDIT:

Halo armor, Oct 3rd 2009, 7:14pm, 11 pages. more detailed calculation of the impact against a Supercarrier.

Mike DiCenso wrote:Here is the dialog from just before Riker's torpedo statements:

RIKER: Geordi's found something.
LAFORGE: There's a subspace resonance signature coming from that asteroid, sir. It could be the warp core of the Pegasus.
PRESSMAN: I think he's right. I recognise some of the variance patterns.
PICARD: Put the asteroid on the main viewscreen.
DATA: I have confirmed Geordi's readings. The resonance signature is originating from somewhere beneath the asteroid's surface.
PRESSMAN: Beneath the surface? How's that possible?
DATA: This asteroid contains several deep chasms large enough for a starship to enter. It is possible the Pegasus drifted into the asteroid's gravitational field and was pulled down into one of the fissures.

Hmm, the chasms is a good point.

The one thing he wouldn't have time to do is to figure out how much exactly it would take to destroy the asteroid, so he may be over estimating the number of torpedoes required (note that no specific number is given precisely, Riker just says "it would take most of our photon torpedoes"). So Riker has to figure out in a matter of seconds how much of the ship's torpedo loadout has to be expended to utterly destroy the asteroid and the ship inside it so that there is absolutely no way that neither the Romulans, nor Pressman can get their hands on it.

Agreed, nor do I wish to play character assassination, but Riker never struck me as the kind of guy who could make an exact calculation in his head in a matter of seconds. I'm willing to guess he was making gueses based on the asteroid's size, leaving some room for comfort.

Another thing to tie this into in making the point of the asteroid calculator flawed assumptions is this: in VOY's "Rise", a single torpedo can vaporize a nickel-iron asteroid hundreds of meters wide such that only at most 1 cm wide debris is left. Also, why not assume vaporization, or melting? Why assume that the asteroid is broken up into 10 meter chunks of debris?
-Mike

Isn't 100% vaporization nearly impossible with a single torpedo given that smaller fragments will break away? As for why, I'd guess it was due to the calculations that Wong got from some book and just basically upscaled them.

Mith wrote: Isn't 100% vaporization nearly impossible with a single torpedo given that smaller fragments will break away? As for why, I'd guess it was due to the calculations that Wong got from some book and just basically upscaled them.

I was being retorical with that question. The real crux of the matter there is that the 10 meter chunks has nothing to do with being able calculate the fracturing or crushing of an asteroid into essentially dust. And yes, total vaporization would be impossible with a single torpedo given the omnidirectional geometry of the explosion, and the fact that the torpedo is impacting and exploding on the surface, not deep in the center of the asteroid. This fact is something you can bring up to your friend on ASVS. Also here's the Trekcore images of the warbird flying close to the asteroid:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbna ... 163&page=6

You can see how much bigger this makes the asteroid in comparison to just assuming the E-D entered into the one larger of the two chasm openings.
-Mike

The pictures I linked to above clearly identify the chasm the E-D went through.
Is there a comparison done with the Deridex?

Yes, the E-D goes through to the smaller of the two chasms (the one on the left) as vivftp and Young attempt to claim it is the larger one on the right for rather vague reasons. Even going with the larger chasm, I get 11.1 to 12 km doing my own scaling of the images.

As for the warbird to the asteroid. In Trekcore image 126 (last one on the right of the bottom row of images), the warbird measures .95 inches, while the tallest point on the chasm feature is exactly one inch. The largest portion of the asteroid is approximately 5.98", which given a D'Deridex warbird wingspan of 1 km, would mean it is just less than 6 km. Using vivftp's measurements, the asteroid is 10.65 times the large chasm's height, so it is no less than 10.65 km tall. If we use the smaller chasm, then the asteroid is about 38% larger or around 14.70 km. There are other views of the warbird and the asteroid, but most of those are seen from the ship's viewscreen which could have an effect on the scalings. However, if you choose to go with those images, the warbird in screencap 131, the warbird is .56" wide, and the widest diagonal section of the asteroid visible is 4.15", which would make it 7.41 km wide! This makes just this section about 1 km shorter than the vivftp and Young scalings for the entire asteroid! Unfortunately we can't easily identify where that section is on the asteroid and compare it to the overall size.
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:Yes, the E-D goes through to the smaller of the two chasms (the one on the left) as vivftp and Young attempt to claim it is the larger one on the right for rather vague reasons.

Why suggest malign intent? The demonstration is pretty solid. The E-D does enter the largest fracture; all the features around it can easily be observed, no matter the degree of zoom or the rotation of the asteroid and thus the projection of shadows.

Even going with the larger chasm, I get 11.1 to 12 km doing my own scaling of the images.

Actually, here's the post in question; 8.92 km long, that's what was found.

As for the warbird to the asteroid. In Trekcore image 126 (last one on the right of the bottom row of images), the warbird measures .95 inches, while the tallest point on the chasm feature is exactly one inch. The largest portion of the asteroid is approximately 5.98", which given a D'Deridex warbird wingspan of 1 km, would mean it is just less than 6 km. Using vivftp's measurements, the asteroid is 10.65 times the large chasm's height, so it is no less than 10.65 km tall. If we use the smaller chasm, then the asteroid is about 38% larger or around 14.70 km. There are other views of the warbird and the asteroid, but most of those are seen from the ship's viewscreen which could have an effect on the scalings. However, if you choose to go with those images, the warbird in screencap 131, the warbird is .56" wide, and the widest diagonal section of the asteroid visible is 4.15", which would make it 7.41 km wide! This makes just this section about 1 km shorter than the vivftp and Young scalings for the entire asteroid! Unfortunately we can't easily identify where that section is on the asteroid and compare it to the overall size.
-Mike

OK. The main problem would be, here, that we can't know how far from the asteroid the Romulan ship is.

Here is another good thread from SBC, feats talk about TOS/nuTrek torp and phaser yields.

Another point. I've recently read that there was an episode wherein an UFP ship used to fire 5 torps in order to destroy a 200 meters wide ship that's been subjected to gamma radiations for countless eons, and the same levels were a considerable threat to the UFP ship's defenses and crew.
What episode was that?

EDIT: on another note, and that's in direct relation to the ASVS thread, I see Prophet referring a claim I made at SBC about Halo 04's demise, pointing out it didn't make sense.
http://www.asvs.us/index.php/topic/992- ... t__p__8538

Simply put, there is no natural force that could allow for the destroyed section that flew inwards... to fly inwards.
I did come with a set of dimensions for the ring, since we knew its diameter. I remember getting its total crust thickness and its band-width. This allowed me to guess the mass, assuming a mundane metal. I remember that after gauging how fast the thing flew before it hit the other side of the ring, it had a kinetic energy that was simply ridiculous. There is simply no scientific way for this debris to have been detached and propelled by the sheer energy of the PoA's explosion (I hope Prophet wasn't tempted to suggest centripetal force). Although gouging a 5 km wide in such a structure is impressive, let's not forget that it tells nothing about the crater's depth. Besides, with the measurements I obtained, I find it odd that a structure that is so thick would actually be so weakened by a 5 km wide crater. It really pushes people to reconsider the whole "super-tough Forerunner materials" mantra.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Why suggest malign intent? The demonstration is pretty solid. The E-D does enter the largest fracture; all the features around it can easily be observed, no matter the degree of zoom or the rotation of the asteroid and thus the projection of shadows.

I wasn't, but if you insist, I might point out that no other methodologies of scaling the asteroid were even considered, and no one pointed out the flaws in the attempt to identify the chasm using the marker features which are virtually identical on each chasm, and are visible from one or the other just the same.

Other issues curiously neglected are the reasons Pressman orders the E-D into the chasm in the first place; because the gravitational and magnetic flux of the asteroid can overpower a shuttlecraft's engines.... A very odd thing since shuttlecraft have demonstrated repeatedly throughout the various incarnations of Trek to be able to withstand normal terrestrial sized planet and even gas giant sized gravitational and magnetic fields. The density of this asteroid would have to be astounding to do such a thing!

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Actually, here's the post in question; 8.92 km long, that's what was found.

But it's flawed. 9 km is probably a lower limit. We even discussed that here on SFJ numerous times. The fact is that both of them went with a lower limits without attempting to explain it as such.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:OK. The main problem would be, here, that we can't know how far from the asteroid the Romulan ship is.

[/quote]

I disagree, but it would take some trigonometry since in the exterior shots we can see the E-D and warbird and can calculate their distance to one another, and then confine the width of the asteroid within that.
-Mike

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Here is another good thread from SBC, feats talk about TOS/nuTrek torp and phaser yields.

Another point. I've recently read that there was an episode wherein an UFP ship used to fire 5 torps in order to destroy a 200 meters wide ship that's been subjected to gamma radiations for countless eons, and the same levels were a considerable threat to the UFP ship's defenses and crew.
What episode was that?

Among other things people in that thread, most suprisingly l33telboi missed, was that Kirk's statement was that a 97.835 MT explosion results from overloading a single starship's impulse engine. Thus 98 MT is a very lower limit there. But I digress. The interesting thing is the photon torpedo explosion examples which show that torpedoes rarely leave large fragments behind when they destroy asteroids and starships. The "Rise" incident was an anomaly, and was even as part of the plot acknowledged as one that was throughly investigated by the Voyager crew, and they soon discovered the asteroid there was made of artifical alloys and one natural one that was prone to fragmentation.

Thus one has to conclude that when Riker means the asteroid in "The Pegasus" is to be destroyed, he means mostly vaporized or reduced to tiny pieces vastly smaller than 10 meter chunks.

As for the gamma radiation threat... what episode was this? Certainly not "Booby Trap", nor "Final Mission".
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Why suggest malign intent? The demonstration is pretty solid. The E-D does enter the largest fracture; all the features around it can easily be observed, no matter the degree of zoom or the rotation of the asteroid and thus the projection of shadows.

I wasn't, but if you insist, I might point out that no other methodologies of scaling the asteroid were even considered, and no one pointed out the flaws in the attempt to identify the chasm using the marker features which are virtually identical on each chasm, and are visible from one or the other just the same.

Eh?? What each chasm? We essentially always see the same face of the asteroid, with varying degrees of zoom. vivftp properly pointed out a couple of those features, and anyone can complete the work rather easily.
So I don't understand what you're getting at.
Please clarify.

Other issues curiously neglected are the reasons Pressman orders the E-D into the chasm in the first place; because the gravitational and magnetic flux of the asteroid can overpower a shuttlecraft's engines.... A very odd thing since shuttlecraft have demonstrated repeatedly throughout the various incarnations of Trek to be able to withstand normal terrestrial sized planet and even gas giant sized gravitational and magnetic fields. The density of this asteroid would have to be astounding to do such a thing!

Surely, that's another problem. You density that's required to generate gees that would overpower engines which can leave Earth within a few minutes tops would be incredible.
How the asteroid in question didn't reach hydrostatic equilibrium is odd.
The whole thing is perhaps even more contradicted by the time the Romulan ship melts the cavity's entrance with disruptors. Did we see any gout of molten material fall towards the core of the asteroid, and hit the E-D for example?
Surely, if the gravity is so strong that a shuttle couldn't control entry and even exit, damaging the asteroid's integrity would have surely resulted in something much more hazardous than a cleanly sealed entrance. I would have expected something more like a rain of debris and a newly formed giant stalactite made of asteroid material, pointing "corewards".

Then, perhaps, and I may say once again, we're dealing with more Trek physics, aka pure nonsense.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Actually, here's the post in question; 8.92 km long, that's what was found.

But it's flawed. 9 km is probably a lower limit. We even discussed that here on SFJ numerous times. The fact is that both of them went with a lower limits without attempting to explain it as such.

In the threads in question, you'll notice that we only made vague mentions of Pegasus, rarely talking about the details of the measurements.
When we did so, you always were saying it's flawed, because of lighting and things like that, like you did here:
http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 17&p=12148
http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 7&start=15
The thing is, the lighting is not a problem at all. It is totally accounted for the minute changes of shadows between this shot and this one.
The trickiest part being the transition from one of those two former pictures to this one.
What you need to do is observe the edge of the chasm the E-D flies into, and do the same for all asperities around said chasm.

Now the FX guys wouldn't have made the shots focus on the big chasm if it wasn't for E-D to enter a fracture which just happens to be so close to the large chasm we saw in the more distant views.

EDIT: I used the shapes gotten from the shot where the E-D enters the asteroid, and tried to replace them on another shot.

The shapes are very translucent, but it's done so you can still see the original rocky relief.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:OK. The main problem would be, here, that we can't know how far from the asteroid the Romulan ship is.

I disagree, but it would take some trigonometry since in the exterior shots we can see the E-D and warbird and can calculate their distance to one another, and then confine the width of the asteroid within that.
-Mike[/quote]

Well I'll let you do that, since as far as I'm concerned the methodology that uses the E-D as a yardstick is good enough.

Mike DiCenso wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Here is another good thread from SBC, feats talk about TOS/nuTrek torp and phaser yields.

Another point. I've recently read that there was an episode wherein an UFP ship used to fire 5 torps in order to destroy a 200 meters wide ship that's been subjected to gamma radiations for countless eons, and the same levels were a considerable threat to the UFP ship's defenses and crew.
What episode was that?

Among other things people in that thread, most suprisingly l33telboi missed, was that Kirk's statement was that a 97.835 MT explosion results from overloading a single starship's impulse engine. Thus 98 MT is a very lower limit there. But I digress. The interesting thing is the photon torpedo explosion examples which show that torpedoes rarely leave large fragments behind when they destroy asteroids and starships. The "Rise" incident was an anomaly, and was even as part of the plot acknowledged as one that was throughly investigated by the Voyager crew, and they soon discovered the asteroid there was made of artifical alloys and one natural one that was prone to fragmentation.

Thus one has to conclude that when Riker means the asteroid in "The Pegasus" is to be destroyed, he means mostly vaporized or reduced to tiny pieces vastly smaller than 10 meter chunks.

Nope. Because small asteroids largely vanish after being hit, it doesn't automatically translate in Riker thought that the big ass one would be largely vaporized.

As for the gamma radiation threat... what episode was this? Certainly not "Booby Trap", nor "Final Mission".
-Mike

Dunno. I've read about it on some other thread, on some other board I googled.
Surely it would be another very useful figure by the description I got from it.

Mr. Oragahn wrote: Eh?? What each chasm? We essentially always see the same face of the asteroid, with varying degrees of zoom. vivftp properly pointed out a couple of those features, and anyone can complete the work rather easily.

The two chasm next to each other. You can clearly see them in the overall view of the asteroid. But for now, just to keep things conservative, I'll concede to your work.

Mike DiCenso wrote:Other issues curiously neglected are the reasons Pressman orders the E-D into the chasm in the first place; because the gravitational and magnetic flux of the asteroid can overpower a shuttlecraft's engines.... A very odd thing since shuttlecraft have demonstrated repeatedly throughout the various incarnations of Trek to be able to withstand normal terrestrial sized planet and even gas giant sized gravitational and magnetic fields. The density of this asteroid would have to be astounding to do such a thing!

Mr. Oragahn wrote: Surely, that's another problem. You density that's required to generate gees that would overpower engines which can leave Earth within a few minutes tops would be incredible.
How the asteroid in question didn't reach hydrostatic equilibrium is odd.
The whole thing is perhaps even more contradicted by the time the Romulan ship melts the cavity's entrance with disruptors. Did we see any gout of molten material fall towards the core of the asteroid, and hit the E-D for example?
Surely, if the gravity is so strong that a shuttle couldn't control entry and even exit, damaging the asteroid's integrity would have surely resulted in something much more hazardous than a cleanly sealed entrance. I would have expected something more like a rain of debris and a newly formed giant stalactite made of asteroid material, pointing "corewards".

Then, perhaps, and I may say once again, we're dealing with more Trek physics, aka pure nonsense.

Except that the molten material does flow "downwards' into the asteroid within minutes of the warbird's firing on it. The only other explanation is that the warbird pushed the material in with focused weapons fire, or with a tractor beam.

As for the nonsense of it, I agree, but nonetheless, it is a canon fact. So do we charge this up to FX incompetence for not making an asteroid that was larger and more spherical, or assume that Data is an idiot?

Mr. Oragahn wrote:OK. The main problem would be, here, that we can't know how far from the asteroid the Romulan ship is.

Mike DiCenso wrote:I disagree, but it would take some trigonometry since in the exterior shots we can see the E-D and warbird and can calculate their distance to one another, and then confine the width of the asteroid within that.
-Mike

Mr. Oragahn wrote: Well I'll let you do that, since as far as I'm concerned the methodology that uses the E-D as a yardstick is good enough.

I did some work on it. Roughly speaking I get a distance of warbird to camera in the 126 image of 7 km and from the E-D to camera of 886 meters. So about 6,100 meters seperates the two ships. Now that seems a bit small, and my math may be a bit faulty, but then I realized that the two ships are at an angle of some 30-45 degrees off the asteroid's center and this may throw everything off even more, as this may make the thing far larger since the distance would cover only across that section, not the whole asteroid.

As for the E-D as reliable yardstick, I would point out that the height of the ship is skewed here and no one source agrees on it how tall it is: some placing it only at 137 meters, while others estimate it at 150 meters, and the DS9 TM is way out there with 193 meters (not possible within the proportions we see). However within a meter every source places the ship at 641 to 642.5 meters. Call it 642 meters.

Using your images:











Measuring the chasm opening of 2.51" to the E-D length 1.85" (measuring from the narrowest parts of the chasm) I get 873 meters. Again using the images provided here, dividing 362.4 pixels by 34 I get a ratio of 10.66 to 1. 10.66 x 873 = 9.306 km. Measuring the wider parts of the chasm I can get the asteroid length up to 10 km. So that's a third to a full km or more longer using the ship's length, not height. Of course using one of the larger estimate averages for the ships height I can put it in that 10 km range. 160 meters x 5.78 = 924 m x 10.66 = 9,858.36 m.

Starting to get my point now?

Mike DiCenso wrote: Among other things people in that thread, most suprisingly l33telboi missed, was that Kirk's statement was that a 97.835 MT explosion results from overloading a single starship's impulse engine. Thus 98 MT is a very lower limit there. But I digress. The interesting thing is the photon torpedo explosion examples which show that torpedoes rarely leave large fragments behind when they destroy asteroids and starships. The "Rise" incident was an anomaly, and was even as part of the plot acknowledged as one that was throughly investigated by the Voyager crew, and they soon discovered the asteroid there was made of artifical alloys and one natural one that was prone to fragmentation.

Thus one has to conclude that when Riker means the asteroid in "The Pegasus" is to be destroyed, he means mostly vaporized or reduced to tiny pieces vastly smaller than 10 meter chunks.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Nope. Because small asteroids largely vanish after being hit, it doesn't automatically translate in Riker thought that the big ass one would be largely vaporized.

That makes no sense. Assuming 100 megaton torpedoes as per the rise calculations, then 250 torpedoes x 100 MT = 25,000 MT or 25 gigatons. That's more than enough to signficantly vaporize a spherical asteroid of those dimensions, never mind an irregularly shaped one. On the other hand, if we look at it the other way, knowing that vaporization is possible such that only tiny bits remain, then 768 gigatons divided by 250 torps = 3 gigatons per torpedo. Riker's thought, as the dialog shows, is to utterly destroy the thing and the Pegasus to ensure not a single bit remained for Pressman or the Romulans. Under your scenario, Riker is an idiot who will just be happy with leaving behind large chunks and possibly large pieces of the ship.

On top of that, as noted earlier, Riker has no idea exactly what it will take. He gave an off the cuff option, one that ensures total destruction. We also cannot quantify exactly what "most of" the 250 torpedo loadout means. Is it 150, 165, 200 , or 249 torpedoes to do the job? Brian Young assumes 275 were expended (the number per the TNG TM, not the canon 250 number given in "Conundrum").

So what this comes down to is at very minimum "The Pegasus" points to low single digit megatons, and on the upper range low single digit gigatons.
-Mike