My web site - finally uploaded

[Picard]

Except that with photon torpedoes it is questionable wether fragmentation is achievable. M/AM reaction produces radiation which then heats surrounding matter - something like large scale microwave; classic "explosion" can happen only if there is gas around torpedo when it detonates. So part of asteroid might have been melted, but even then new torpedoes would vaporize that part (lest it cools down and solidifies).

Plus, as I already explained, it is either all or nothing - if your interpretation of one piece of evidence is contradicted by several other canon examples (which are all equally canon), you can't ignore these several exaples in favour of one example - meaning that one problematic example has to be brought in line somehow.

As for TL, it was either using that quote or nothing. It is ONLY instance in canon where we have yield of HTL bolt even remotely defined.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

What? Are you claiming that you thought that the quote was contradicted by the films, but that you'd use it...because it's the only thing you've got?

My gosh that's...gah. If you have nothing valid to work with, don't work with it at all. Try to quantify power generation and then use that to deduce SW turbolaser firepower.

And by your own logic, why can I not use the AOTC and ROTS ICS's, since, as you say, they're the only thing we've got? In fact, they're among the only sources with precise quantifications.

And I dare you to show me a quote where George Lucas considered a book whose sole purpose is to expand on the FILMS is in a parallel universe.

[Khas]

No, the ICSes aren't. The New Essential Guide To Weapons And Technology provides stats, mainly weapons ranges, but they greatly contradict the ICS stats, and are more in line with the movies.

For example, the optimum range of a turbolaser, according to The Guide, is 15 kilometers. The maximum range is 100 kilometers.

Proton torpedoes and concussion missiles are stated to have a maximum range of 600 and 700 meters.

Weapons with ICS stats would NOT have those as their max ranges. These ranges also fit in better with what's seen in the movies.

[Sothis]

"Pegasus"

Federation starship Pegasus, fitted with experimental (and illegal) interphase cloak, which allows ship to "phase out" and pass throught matter unhindered, has been lost. It is later found partially embedded into rocky asteroid, and USS Enterprise D is sent to destroy it.

These pieces of dialogue are important for determining yields (important blaces are in italics):

Pressman: "The Pegasus was prototype. Experimental engine, new weapon systems, in fact some of our designs were used in constructing the Enterprise. There are lot of things that Romulans would like to have their hands on".
Picard: "What are our orders?"
Pressman: "To find Pegasus. Salvage if possible, destroy if necessary."

and later:

RIKER: I recommend we destroy the asteroid. It would take most of our photon torpedoes, but it would preclude any possibility of the Pegasus falling into Romulan hands.
PRESSMAN: What the hell is the matter with you? Destroy the Pegasus before we've even taken a look at it?
RIKER: I thought it was more important that the Romulans...
PRESSMAN: Well, you were wrong! We have a chance here to change the balance of power in this quadrant, but we can't very well do that if we destroy the Pegasus, now can we?
RIKER: No, sir.

So it is clear that they could destroy Pegasus only by vaporizing asteroid itself to prevent Romulans from finding the cloak. To do that, they needed to vaporize asteroid.

Why the assumption that the asteroid needed to be vaporised? They wouldn't necessarily need to do so to render anything the Romulans did find worthless. It's also far from certain that the asteroid's metallic content was significant- if it were, the asteroid would be more consolidated, rather than containing hollow chasms large enough for a 700m starship to move about in. More likely it's simply not that hard to overwhelm a shuttle's systems.

[Mr. Oragahn]

No, the ICSes aren't. The New Essential Guide To Weapons And Technology provides stats, mainly weapons ranges, but they greatly contradict the ICS stats, and are more in line with the movies.

For example, the optimum range of a turbolaser, according to The Guide, is 15 kilometers. The maximum range is 100 kilometers.

Proton torpedoes and concussion missiles are stated to have a maximum range of 600 and 700 meters.

Weapons with ICS stats would NOT have those as their max ranges. These ranges also fit in better with what's seen in the movies.

I strongly suspect those torp and missile ranges to be stated when taking into consideration the jamming. Let's be clear, it's contradicted by other EU works that usually have missiles and torpedoes covering several kilometers.
They even seem contradicted by the ranges seen in TPM, which would be about closer to 1000 m, during the dive towards the central spherical section of the droid control ship.

[Mr. Oragahn]

"Pegasus"

Federation starship Pegasus, fitted with experimental (and illegal) interphase cloak, which allows ship to "phase out" and pass throught matter unhindered, has been lost. It is later found partially embedded into rocky asteroid, and USS Enterprise D is sent to destroy it.

These pieces of dialogue are important for determining yields (important blaces are in italics):

Pressman: "The Pegasus was prototype. Experimental engine, new weapon systems, in fact some of our designs were used in constructing the Enterprise. There are lot of things that Romulans would like to have their hands on".
Picard: "What are our orders?"
Pressman: "To find Pegasus. Salvage if possible, destroy if necessary."

and later:

RIKER: I recommend we destroy the asteroid. It would take most of our photon torpedoes, but it would preclude any possibility of the Pegasus falling into Romulan hands.
PRESSMAN: What the hell is the matter with you? Destroy the Pegasus before we've even taken a look at it?
RIKER: I thought it was more important that the Romulans...
PRESSMAN: Well, you were wrong! We have a chance here to change the balance of power in this quadrant, but we can't very well do that if we destroy the Pegasus, now can we?
RIKER: No, sir.

So it is clear that they could destroy Pegasus only by vaporizing asteroid itself to prevent Romulans from finding the cloak. To do that, they needed to vaporize asteroid.

Why the assumption that the asteroid needed to be vaporised? They wouldn't necessarily need to do so to render anything the Romulans did find worthless. It's also far from certain that the asteroid's metallic content was significant- if it were, the asteroid would be more consolidated, rather than containing hollow chasms large enough for a 700m starship to move about in. More likely it's simply not that hard to overwhelm a shuttle's systems.

One could always say that fragmenting most of the asteroid would not suffice. If they were to miss the smoking gun fragment or even be prevented from finishing the job by the Romulans.
Plus UFP ships have hulls which are able to tank some serious firepower.

On the other hand, no matter how we look at it, they could never prevent fragment of all sizes being produced, so they would have to start catching them anyway. This renders some of the objections from above moot.
The very fact that they'd need more than a hundred torps to do it implies a minimal bombardment duration that would precisely result in some serious mess anyway: they could not cleanly destroy all the asteroid within a dozen seconds.
At some point, the mass of plasma, particles and debris would just mix up with the already present rocks, bouncing all over the place.
Riker's comment may have been more desperate than anything else.

[Praeothmin]

Actually, it could simply help in understanding why Riker said it would take most of the Torpedoes...
The fisrt few dozen hits create a debris field that following Torpedoes need to blow through to reach the Pegasus, making the needed yields much higher than what would truly normally be needed...

As for the vaporization bit, while no one believes Riker meant absolute vaporization, anything else, like fragmentation, would most likely not deprive the Romulans of putting their hands on Federation Technology, even if damaged somewhat, while a "vaporized ship means any analysis of the debris would yield very little useful info...

[Picard]

What? Are you claiming that you thought that the quote was contradicted by the films, but that you'd use it...because it's the only thing you've got?

My gosh that's...gah. If you have nothing valid to work with, don't work with it at all. Try to quantify power generation and then use that to deduce SW turbolaser firepower.

And by your own logic, why can I not use the AOTC and ROTS ICS's, since, as you say, they're the only thing we've got? In fact, they're among the only sources with precise quantifications.

And I dare you to show me a quote where George Lucas considered a book whose sole purpose is to expand on the FILMS is in a parallel universe.

As I said, we did not see single heavy TL bolt in movie (e. g. 800-meter-long bolts like one or two seen in RotJ). But that does not mean ships don't have heavy TLs or that they don't use them. After all, we DO see that Venators have 2 pairs of cannons near prow that are quite larger than any other on ship, althought we don't see them fire. So no, we don' see BOLTS, but we do see GUNS... and as such, quote which defines firepower of heavy TL's is valid... in addition to be ONLY thing that gives quantification of HTL firepower, however vague it might seem. As for ICS, these are not canon, and as such cannot be used... even if we forget fact that they are heavily contradicted by canon and EU alike.

As for your last sentence... it makes no sense. ICS is made to explain universe, but is not written by Lucas and as such does not have to fit with his vision... nor does it even try. It is part of EU and will stay such. Besides, if book is made to explain films, it does not make it canon. Star Trek Technical Manuals are made to explain series', and TNG TM at least is written by autrhor who took part in making of TNG, yet none of manuals are canon. So your logic on matter is deeply flawed... if it is due to dishonesty or simple confusion, I wouldn't know.

EDIT: regarding Fragmentation/melting/vaporization argument, let me quote myself since noone here seems to have read it:

With photon torpedoes it is questionable wether fragmentation is achievable. M/AM reaction produces radiation which then heats surrounding matter - something like large scale microwave; classic "explosion" can happen only if there is gas around torpedo when it detonates. So part of asteroid might have been melted, but even then new torpedoes would have to vaporize that part (lest it cools down and solidifies).

Plus, as I already explained, it is either all or nothing - if your interpretation of one piece of evidence is contradicted by several other canon examples (which are all equally canon), you can't ignore these several exaples in favour of one example - meaning that one problematic example has to be brought in line somehow.

We already have "Rise" showing ~200 MT torpedo, and "Skin of Evil" giving ~500 MT torpedo. Meaning that anything below 500 MT per torpedo is invalid as it is contradicted by episode that is equally canon as "Pegasus". And torpedoes DO have variable yield, meaning that maximum yield of torpedoes is >= 500 Mt.

[Picard]

I just finished Relics calcs...

TNG "Relics"

Enterprise was pulled inside a Dyson Sphere. We have following dialogues:

After Enterprise was pulled inside:

"Auxilliary power failling."
"The resonante frequency of tractor beams is incompatible with our power systems. Warp and impulse engine relays have been overloaded. I am attempting to compensate."
(few moments later)
"The tractor beams have released us, sir. "
"Holed position here until we can get our bearing."
"Full sensor sweep, Mr. Data. Where are we?"
"Approximately 90 million kilometers from the star's photosphere. I am reading a great deal of surface instability. It may be..."
"Sir! The inertial motion from the tractor beams is still carrying us forward. Impulse engines are off-line and I can't stop our momentum. We're falling directly into the star.

(Cut to Jenolan.)

(Cut back to Enterprise.).

Data: "We will enter the sun's photosphere in 3 minutes."



Later, they use manouvering thrusters to change course and attain orbit, implying that primary power is offline, which is confirmed in dialogue.



Helmswoman: "We're in orbit, captain. Our altitude is 150 000 kilometers.
Riker: "I'll see about getting main power back on line."

Later:

Data: "Sphere appears to be abandoned. Sensors show that star is extremely unstable. It is experiencing severe bursts of radiation and matter expulsions."
(...)
Worf: "Sir. Sensors show a large magnetic disturbance on the star's surface."
Data: "It is a solar flare, captain. Magitude 12, class B."



Picard: "Shields?"
Worf: "Shields are up, but only at 23%."
Data: "The star has entered a period of increased activity. Sensors indicate that solar flares will continue to grow. In three hours, our shields will no longer be sufficient to protect us, sir."



So:
a) Enterprise is 150 000 km from star's surface
b) shields are up to 23% of full power
c) star has entered period of increased activity
d) it will take 3 hours for shields to be overwhelmed
e) with GCS being 641 meters long and 463 meters wide, with shields being approx. 700 meters long and 500 meters wide; ellipse representing area of shields struck is piab, or pi * 700m * 500m; or 1 099 577 m^2. Shields are probably around 250 m high. However, surface area of ellipsoid is:



For this:



a is 350 m, b is 250 m and c is 125 m. p ≈ 1.6075. With that we get surface area of 720 103 square meters.

I will asume that star is same as our Sun (which is disproved by screenshot above, but still...). In next to last screenshot a (presumed) coronal mass ejection is seen.

Being 150 000 km from surface, Enterprise was inside corona, meaning that we have take into account both direct radiation and energy carried by corona.

RADIATION

The energy flux at the surface of the Sun is approximately 63 x 10e6 W/m^2 (1).

diameter of sun = 1 391 000 kilometers

So, surface area of sun is 4 x pi x r^2, r = 695 500 000 m; so SAs = 6.0786 x 10e18 m^2.

On the other hand, surface area of imaginary sphere which contains Enterprise's orbit within its shell is 7.46028 x 10e18 m^2. Meaning that energy density at that distance is 0.8148 of that on surface, or 51 332 400 W / m^2, or 51.3224 MW / m^2.

CORONAL ENERGY

In Astrophysical Journal, we have this:

"... the coronal cloud has a thermal energy of 10e51 ergs at 20 kpc..."

1 erg = 10e(-7) J

1 kpc = 3.08568025 × 10e19 meters

So, at 6.1713605 x 10e20 m ( 6.17 x 10e17 km) coronal cloud has energy of 10e44 J. However, diameter of Sun is 1 391 000 km (for radius of 695 500 km). Meaning that surface area of imaginary sphere whose shell is at this altitude is 4.783879 x 10e36 m^2, which gives energy of 20.9 MW per m^2. Still, Enterprise was at 150 000 000 m from surface which is sphere with surface area of 8.98 x 10e12 m^2; smaller than first one by factor of 5.327 x 10e23, giving energy of 1.113 x 10e31 W per m^2.

In end, combined energy absorbed by shields is 1.2 x 10e35 J at 23 %, giving total energy capacity of 5.22787 x 10e35 J... or 125 yottatons. Which is a tad too high for some other examples - even high-end estimate (from DITL) gives TDiC yield of 20 billion megatons per torpedo. Or 20 petatons.

Please, tell me that I have screwed somewhere in calculations.

[Picard]

I have uploaded following updated pages:
- canon
- hull
- shields (Star Wars)
- photon torpedoes
- territory comparation
- Imperial armor
- Turbolasers (just added a picture)
- military comparation (and I noticed an error - it is 15 to 75 million men for KDF, not 25 to 75 million)

[Mike DiCenso]

I just finished Relics calcs...

TNG "Relics"

Enterprise was pulled inside a Dyson Sphere. We have following dialogues:

After Enterprise was pulled inside:

"Auxilliary power failling."
"The resonante frequency of tractor beams is incompatible with our power systems. Warp and impulse engine relays have been overloaded. I am attempting to compensate."
(few moments later)
"The tractor beams have released us, sir. "
"Holed position here until we can get our bearing."
"Full sensor sweep, Mr. Data. Where are we?"
"Approximately 90 million kilometers from the star's photosphere. I am reading a great deal of surface instability. It may be..."
"Sir! The inertial motion from the tractor beams is still carrying us forward. Impulse engines are off-line and I can't stop our momentum. We're falling directly into the star.

(Cut to Jenolan.)

(Cut back to Enterprise.).

Data: "We will enter the sun's photosphere in 3 minutes."



Later, they use manouvering thrusters to change course and attain orbit, implying that primary power is offline, which is confirmed in dialogue.



Helmswoman: "We're in orbit, captain. Our altitude is 150 000 kilometers.
Riker: "I'll see about getting main power back on line."

Later:

Data: "Sphere appears to be abandoned. Sensors show that star is extremely unstable. It is experiencing severe bursts of radiation and matter expulsions."
(...)
Worf: "Sir. Sensors show a large magnetic disturbance on the star's surface."
Data: "It is a solar flare, captain. Magitude 12, class B."



Picard: "Shields?"
Worf: "Shields are up, but only at 23%."
Data: "The star has entered a period of increased activity. Sensors indicate that solar flares will continue to grow. In three hours, our shields will no longer be sufficient to protect us, sir."



So:
a) Enterprise is 150 000 km from star's surface
b) shields are up to 23% of full power
c) star has entered period of increased activity
d) it will take 3 hours for shields to be overwhelmed
e) with GCS being 641 meters long and 463 meters wide, with shields being approx. 700 meters long and 500 meters wide; ellipse representing area of shields struck is piab, or pi * 700m * 500m; or 1 099 577 m^2. Shields are probably around 250 m high. However, surface area of ellipsoid is:



For this:



a is 350 m, b is 250 m and c is 125 m. p ≈ 1.6075. With that we get surface area of 720 103 square meters.

I will asume that star is same as our Sun (which is disproved by screenshot above, but still...). In next to last screenshot a (presumed) coronal mass ejection is seen.

Being 150 000 km from surface, Enterprise was inside corona, meaning that we have take into account both direct radiation and energy carried by corona.

RADIATION

The energy flux at the surface of the Sun is approximately 63 x 10e6 W/m^2 (1).

diameter of sun = 1 391 000 kilometers

So, surface area of sun is 4 x pi x r^2, r = 695 500 000 m; so SAs = 6.0786 x 10e18 m^2.

On the other hand, surface area of imaginary sphere which contains Enterprise's orbit within its shell is 7.46028 x 10e18 m^2. Meaning that energy density at that distance is 0.8148 of that on surface, or 51 332 400 W / m^2, or 51.3224 MW / m^2.

CORONAL ENERGY

In Astrophysical Journal, we have this:

"... the coronal cloud has a thermal energy of 10e51 ergs at 20 kpc..."

1 erg = 10e(-7) J

1 kpc = 3.08568025 × 10e19 meters

So, at 6.1713605 x 10e20 m ( 6.17 x 10e17 km) coronal cloud has energy of 10e44 J. However, diameter of Sun is 1 391 000 km (for radius of 695 500 km). Meaning that surface area of imaginary sphere whose shell is at this altitude is 4.783879 x 10e36 m^2, which gives energy of 20.9 MW per m^2. Still, Enterprise was at 150 000 000 m from surface which is sphere with surface area of 8.98 x 10e12 m^2; smaller than first one by factor of 5.327 x 10e23, giving energy of 1.113 x 10e31 W per m^2.

In end, combined energy absorbed by shields is 1.2 x 10e35 J at 23 %, giving total energy capacity of 5.22787 x 10e35 J... or 125 yottatons. Which is a tad too high for some other examples - even high-end estimate (from DITL) gives TDiC yield of 20 billion megatons per torpedo. Or 20 petatons.

Please, tell me that I have screwed somewhere in calculations.

Your latter assumptions are way off. The coronal density is way too small to have that kind of effect on the E-D. Even the direct hit by the CME later on is not enough to raise the energy to that high a level. Also, Graham Kennedy's DITL calcs for the photon torpedoes in TDIC are actually insanely conservative if you read his assumptions.
-Mike

[Picard]

Problem is that we see no ships firing on Jem'Hadar attack ships, which makes it possible that actual low end is correct one, just with added NDF/chain reaction from beam weapons. Thought it is just... big confusion.

[Lucky]

Problem is that we see no ships firing on Jem'Hadar attack ships, which makes it possible that actual low end is correct one, just with added NDF/chain reaction from beam weapons. Thought it is just... big confusion.

Why would they need an added chain reaction element to their weapons? UFP ships have no trouble tunneling into planets at insane speeds

[Mike DiCenso]

Problem is that we see no ships firing on Jem'Hadar attack ships, which makes it possible that actual low end is correct one, just with added NDF/chain reaction from beam weapons. Thought it is just... big confusion.

Actually, they do fire on the JH attack ships:

PILOT: Cardassian cruiser Koranak has been destroyed. Romulan warbirds Makar and Belak have lost main power.

LOVOK: Bring us about to three one eight mark two one five. Concentrate fire on ships attacking on the port quarter.

GARAK: The Jem'Hadar will destroy every ship if we stay. Our only hope is to return to the Alpha Quadrant.

We don't see most of the battle between the opposing fleets, and the JH fleet was far superior to the Obsidan Order/Tal'shiar one. Given the dialog there, at least one ship destroyed and two others crippled out of 20 in the early opening of the fight is not good.
-Mike

[Picard]

Ah, thanks.