Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Wed Nov 03, 2010 11:22 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Doesn't work. There were something like 12 isotons concussion missiles fired at the surface of a planet to get Sisko and co walk out of a crashed enemy ship 468.48 GT would obviously not be in tune with what took place in the episode.
Isotons are inconsistant. As for "The Ship" example, you're also underestimating them as well since the Jem'Hadar were not using them to directly attack the captured battlebug, just shake it up a bit and rattle the Starfleet boarders holding it. As it was, we know a direct hit would have destroyed the ship:

O'BRIEN: I've managed to bypass the virtual display interface and hook up a tricorder to the ship's sensor array. Those are ultritium concussion shells they're detonating.

DAX: Without shields, a direct hit would destroy us.

WORF: I do not believe they're trying to hit us. Their targeting systems cannot be that ineffective.

O'BRIEN: They're trying to rattle us.


We do know from the visuals that the shells were not being detonated very close close to the ship, or Sisko and Worf would have been hit with some pretty serious shock waves and debris when the negotiations with the Vorta broke down and the shelling started.

It also occurs to me that Picard's theory on the warhead reactants might still have something to it, since 12 isotons of ultritium will not necessarily yield the same explosive amounts as anti-deuterium would. Even still, why use the term if regular tons of explosive energy can still apply?
-Mike

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Nov 04, 2010 1:54 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Doesn't work. There were something like 12 isotons concussion missiles fired at the surface of a planet to get Sisko and co walk out of a crashed enemy ship 468.48 GT would obviously not be in tune with what took place in the episode.
Isotons are inconsistant. As for "The Ship" example, you're also underestimating them as well since the Jem'Hadar were not using them to directly attack the captured battlebug, just shake it up a bit and rattle the Starfleet boarders holding it. As it was, we know a direct hit would have destroyed the ship:

O'BRIEN: I've managed to bypass the virtual display interface and hook up a tricorder to the ship's sensor array. Those are ultritium concussion shells they're detonating.

DAX: Without shields, a direct hit would destroy us.

WORF: I do not believe they're trying to hit us. Their targeting systems cannot be that ineffective.

O'BRIEN: They're trying to rattle us.


We do know from the visuals that the shells were not being detonated very close close to the ship, or Sisko and Worf would have been hit with some pretty serious shock waves and debris when the negotiations with the Vorta broke down and the shelling started.
The rattling would easily be achieved with gigajoules. Requiring gigatons is absurd.
It also occurs to me that Picard's theory on the warhead reactants might still have something to it, since 12 isotons of ultritium will not necessarily yield the same explosive amounts as anti-deuterium would. Even still, why use the term if regular tons of explosive energy can still apply?
-Mike
Obviously, characters would need to know other things besides the sole value in isotons.
But then it's just a silly other unit.
If you have 12 tonnes of chemical or fissile material, it's not the same as 12 tonnes of thermonuclear reactants or antimatter.

I suggest that if we're to continue this discussion, we bump the isoton thread.

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Picard » Thu Nov 04, 2010 7:09 pm

The rattling would easily be achieved with gigajoules. Requiring gigatons is absurd.
I doubt gigajoules would destroy any 24th century ST ship - even shuttle. But that was just theory, thought.

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Picard » Thu Nov 04, 2010 7:18 pm

As for isoton, I think it is just equivalent of "ton" in modern world - but in ST you would have "Ferengi ton", "Klingon ton" etc. so Federation tons, based on modern tons, are called ISOtons. So we only need to calculate explosive energy of one ton of ultrilitium (by far most common chemical explosive in ST, so I think it is reasonable to assume explosive "tons" are based on it) and we're halfway done. One of reasons I think ISO-ton is same as metric ton is in Voyager - they need "isograms" of this, "isotons" of that, and it would make no sense if isoton is some unit exclusively for measuring weapon yields.

However, there is one problem - from "A time to stand" we can get 1 isoton to be equivalent to 1 kiloton (give or take half of kiloton). But given that standard photon torpedoes are in megaton, even gigaton range, it would not make sense. So again, we're stuck with reactant mass, with 1 isoton of ultrilithium being 1 kiloton, and 1 isoton in torpedo yield being 21.4 gigatons.

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Nov 04, 2010 9:02 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:The rattling would easily be achieved with gigajoules. Requiring gigatons is absurd.
Not very likely given that we have seen ST ships survive far worse than a this, and this particular battlebug survived slamming into rock at a velocity high enough to imbed most of it's 100 meter length into solid rock. The explosions were also not anywhere nearby, but some distance away. Therefore gigajoule or even low terajoule range energies may be too small a number.

Also when Sisko belts out the 10 isoton number, he and the rest of the crew are under a great deal of stress as multiple explosions are going on outside. He could have stated it as a matter of hyperbole.
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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Who is like God arbour » Thu Nov 04, 2010 9:02 pm

I like the idea that ISO is something like Interplanetary Organization for Standardization. In that case, we would neither know, how many Earth-tonnes an ISO-ton is nor what explosive they are referring to. I mean, it is very anthropocentric to assume, that the whole UfP and its Starfleet would use the old Earth units of measurement and TNT.

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Nov 04, 2010 9:09 pm

While that is an interesting idea, we routinely hear Starfleet officers using meters, metric tons, Celcius, and so on to describe things.
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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Who is like God arbour » Fri Nov 05, 2010 6:08 am

I do not think that all units are standardized. Or that if there are ISO-units, the different planets have totally replaced their own traditional units with the new ISO-units.

Even on Earth, we have the International System of Units and Imperial units.

A scientist who grow up e.g. in the USA would be familiar with the Imperial units and would use them for simple things. He would even think in Imperial units. When thinking of distances, he would think of miles and yards etc.

But when he wants to express scientific things, he probably would use SI units. And that is easy for units, he has never used when growing up so that there is no Imperial unit with which he could be more familiar - even though, an Imperial unit may exist.

And that is the same in Star Trek. Humans in the 24th century are familiar with SI units as far as they have used them every day when growing up. But for more scientific matters, things they have maybe only learned in StarFleet Academy, they are using the ISO-units.

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Nov 05, 2010 1:01 pm

They weren't trying to kill people, just trying to shake them.
They wouldn't fire at the ship because they wouldn't know if the ship didn't suffer any damage, as far as to comprise its basic hull integrity.

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Praeothmin » Fri Nov 05, 2010 4:08 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:They weren't trying to kill people, just trying to shake them.
They wouldn't fire at the ship because they wouldn't know if the ship didn't suffer any damage, as far as to comprise its basic hull integrity.
That's not the point.
The point is, Dax says a direct hit from one of those weapons would destroy a ship that survived crashing into a rock face, embedding itself 100 meters in the rock, the impact was so high...

I'm pretty sure Gigajoules aren't sufficient to destroy such a ship... :)

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Picard » Sat Nov 06, 2010 10:52 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:While that is an interesting idea, we routinely hear Starfleet officers using meters, metric tons, Celcius, and so on to describe things.
-Mike
...and in Voyager we have isotons, isograms, iso-this, iso-that, all of which doesn't make sense to me except for what I already suggested.

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon Nov 08, 2010 3:13 am

Oh, they made use of the Celcius/Metric units as well, too. Just only in the latter parts of DS9 and VOY did they start going with the "iso" units.
-Mike

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Re: Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

Post by Mike DiCenso » Mon Nov 08, 2010 3:21 am

Praeothmin wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:They weren't trying to kill people, just trying to shake them.
They wouldn't fire at the ship because they wouldn't know if the ship didn't suffer any damage, as far as to comprise its basic hull integrity.
That's not the point.
The point is, Dax says a direct hit from one of those weapons would destroy a ship that survived crashing into a rock face, embedding itself 100 meters in the rock, the impact was so high...

I'm pretty sure Gigajoules aren't sufficient to destroy such a ship... :)
Here's Sisko's dialog:

"Dax! Maybe you haven't noticed, but no one's laughing. Now I know it's hot, we're filthy, tired, And we've got ten isotons of explosives going off outside, but we will never get out of this if we don't pull it together and start to act like professionals. Chief, I want that power grid up and running. "

Note that Sisko uses the term "explosives" here. This strongly implies that the ten isotons is spread out among smaller individual blasts (which is what we can see and hear in the episode). Also to consider is this is when the boarding party is under a great deal of duress, and Sisko is saying this after Worf and O'Brien started fighting each other. It is entirely possible that Sisko is exaggerating, or he is lumping in his anger and haste all the explosives' yields together.
-Mike

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