Photon Torpedoes do 690 gigatons?

[Mr. Oragahn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvztjk1fz94

Damn. I don't know if this guy was stupid or suicidal, but it's an epic fall.

Now, I burst in acrid laughter after looking at the video a second time and observing the reaction of the people you could see reflected on the metallic "security" doors.
Modern times...

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvztjk1fz94

Damn. I don't know if this guy was stupid or suicidal, but it's an epic fall.

Now, I burst in acrid laughter after looking at the video a second time and observing the reaction of the people you could see reflected on the metallic "security" doors.
Modern times...

Yea the dude is getting maxed out on the votes on the darwin award lol.

[Praeothmin]

I'll have to watch the video from home, but I'm kinda off iffy on the "posting a video where someone dies" thing here...
And making fun of him after the fact?
JMS, Mike, what do you guys think?

[Mike DiCenso]

It's a video that would probably more than qualify as "poor taste", but I'm not sure that posting a link to it would be necessarily against the board rules. The connection to Wong is a bit iffy since it can imply that Wong is both angry and thus might be suicidal.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

The problem is that Wong's website is wrapped in a fair amount of propaganda, but I think this part got lost on SDN warsies. Hell, even Wong started to believe in his own Blitzkrieg after a while.

Yea id say the line between role play and belief has been well and truly lost on that site.

I still do not see how the E-D was supposed to be able to fire "most" of its 250 torps in the few seconds it would take the warbird to fly over and beam up chunks of the internal crap from the Pegasus.

I went back through the episode to that point as seen here at 5:45 onward, and it takes at least a good 2 minutes for the warbird to make it's way over to the asteroid. If the E-D started unloading torpedoes, they might have been able to get there faster, but 2 or so minutes is more than enough at canonically seen maximum rates of fire to offload a good majority of the ship's 250 torpedoes.
-Mike

[Khas]

The levels off hippocracy on SDN are quite astounding.

1. They say screen material debunks the 690 gigaton material but support the ICS 200 gigaton.

2. They support the 64 megaton material from the TM but deny the 690 gigaton material from the same book.

3. They deny the canoninity of all the TM material in general even though it is part of wongs wank on his site.

Just as planned...

[Kor_Dahar_Master]

It's a video that would probably more than qualify as "poor taste", but I'm not sure that posting a link to it would be necessarily against the board rules. The connection to Wong is a bit iffy since it can imply that Wong is both angry and thus might be suicidal.
-Mike

I dunno if the guy was suicidal (nor did i intend the implication) but he certainly had anger issues.

[Khas]

In case you're wondering why I said that, you know I am the one who found the 690 GT torpedoes, which, I honestly don't believe, much like I don't believe the 200 GT turbolasers. I knew SDN would try to discredit it, but since that book (the TNG TM) was also where they get the 64 MT photon torpedo yields from, which they also say is non-canon. Now they're cherrypicking through their favorite source for ST yields as well. All this does is prove that they're bigger hypocrites than we thought they were. Everything went according to plan.

[Mike DiCenso]

I loved how that one guy at SDN made the claim about the more energetic rate BS without providing a single quote or page number to back it up. He just assumes everyone will believe him if he spews a half-convincing rant out. Indeed, no one questions him, except to ask half-heartedly for a quote.

Anyway, here's the TNG TM quote from page 129:

"While the maximum payload of antimatter in a standard photon torpedo is only about 1.5 kilograms, the released energy per unit time is actually greater than that calculated for a Galaxy-class antimatter pod."

The interesting part there is that is maximum payload for a standard torpedo, and does not disclude the use of other, more powerful types of photon torpedoes. Interesting how that part got discarded. Were this canon, it would go greatly towards explaining some of the disparate stated yields throughout VOY, and why we can have a 25 isoton torp in "Living Witness", and a 200 isoton type in "Scorpion, Part 2".
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvztjk1fz94

Damn. I don't know if this guy was stupid or suicidal, but it's an epic fall.

Now, I burst in acrid laughter after looking at the video a second time and observing the reaction of the people you could see reflected on the metallic "security" doors.
Modern times...

Yea the dude is getting maxed out on the votes on the darwin award lol.

A very smart award I suppose... -_-
We're still talking about someone going to his death.
Again : modern times...

[Mith]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 8&t=145280

i rarely lurk at Stardestroyer.net, but I was doing that today, and came across this thread.

DaveJB

Unfortunately for the Trekkie in question, not only would a 690GT yield for photons grossly contradict what we've seen on-screen (particularly in TNG: The Pegasus and VOY: Rise), the Technical Manuals don't even support such a figure; they pretty explicitly give 64MT as the theoretical maximum yield for a photon torpedo - the DS9 one I believe also gives 128MT for quantum torpedoes - and simple physics show that you can't get more destructive power out of the amount of antimatter used.

I don't recall TNG: The Pegasus and VOY: Rise ruling out higher yields? The Pegasus seemed to be in the turn that space rock into vapor or smaller range, and Rise was in the they only used just enough boom range.

Is there anything to actually put an upper limit on the boom a photon torpedo can cause as far as what is shown on screen?

I love how they ignore all the magic substances that seem to exceed E=MC^2. ^_^

The upper limit can easily support gigaton or teraton range.

Reasonably though, it's not even remotely hundreds of gigatons. Their commonly carried weapons are 200 isotons. Using the tech manuels to decode that, it's 496 megatons. At a yield they wouldn't use for anti-ship battles. So no, I don't think we're going to see gigatons.

That's not to say they can't have them for special missions or purposes of course, but surely not for their standard outload.

[Praeothmin]

I particularily love this part:

simple physics show that you can't get more destructive power out of the amount of antimatter used.

And "simple Physics" show us Transporters cannot exist, FTL travel is impossible with our curent knowledge, yet they do in ST.
Guess what, it is quite possible they have succeded in getting "more bang for the [antimatter] buck", sort'a speak... :)

[Picard]

I got idea - what if ISO-ton in torpedo yield actually means mass of reactants? I know it's little silly, but that is just a theory.

[Mr. Oragahn]

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.

[Praeothmin]

What if "ISO-Ton" means it is ISO-9001 compliant?

:)