First off, I do apologize for the misunderstanding about his being open-hearted about himself, it was in my opinion a bad bit of timing in the Cherry Picking video as it makes it seem as though Brian is attempting to evade the questions and criticism, and I was in a pretty frustrated mood with the whole first half of that video basically being a massive strawman tirade against Robert Scott Anderson and I.
As for pronunciation of my last name, Brian did pronounce it more or less correctly.
So with that, I wish to respond to the first part concerning warp speeds. Brian says that the warp speeds are all over the place, but as I showed in my posting to his commentary and to the NerdCulture site comments section, I have many more examples than merely the ones I provided.
In my original critique of the Minbari versus Federation Case Study video, I covered the fact that the those are just a few of the many such examples that place TOS warp speeds in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of c. In the Warp Speeds List, I provide additional examples, which are now presented here:
From Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country we have this remarkable quote:
KERLA: Captain Kirk, I thought Romulan ale was illegal.
KIRK: One of the advantages of being a thousand light years from Federation headquarters.
McCOY: To you, Chancellor Gorkon, one of the architects of our future.
ALL: Chancellor!
This is the only explicit reference I know of to the actual distance from Earth to the Klingon border. The context is that Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise-A have been sent out to escort the Klingon Chancellor Gorkon back through Federation space to a peace conference. The conference is definitely to be held on Earth:
KIRK: Chancellor. We've been ordered to escort you through Federation space to your meeting on Earth.
And I know of no reference to Starfleet headquarters being on any other planet than Earth. So with that in mind, the next big question mark is how long was all of this supposed to take:
KIRK: Let them die! ...Has it occurred to you that this crew is due to stand down in three months? We've done our bit for King and Country. ...You should have trusted me.
This quote brackets a time frame from which we can reasonably provide a conservative estimate of how long it would take for the E-A to get out there and back again since the ship and crew are due to be out of service in 3 months. So the following assumptions and this is all very conservative: It would take the E-A three months to get there and back again and that the ship is going full speed round trip. So 1,000 light years x 2 = 2,000 light years which is 730,000 light days, which is then divided by 90 days = 8,111.111c. That's pretty decent all things considered and the effects shots show that the ship is not going absolutely full out in speed while escorting Kronos One to Earth:
The stars are not streaking as when we usually see ships at high warp in the TOS, though it may be intentional to allow time for adjustment and for social functions on the way like the dinner Kirk put on for Gorkon and his entourage, etc. Afterwords, the ships might then go full speed. But I think its reasonably safe to say that 8,111c is the low-end here, especially since we know the relatively primitive and slow NX-01 can make the trip in 4 days, which would be better than 182,500c. Also, the E-A was not stood down until the end of the movie, and there was a lot of time left in there for the planning and positioning of everyone for the second attempt at a peace conference at Kitomer which was to take place in about one week's time from after the assassination:
AZETBUR (on viewscreen): Mister President, let us come to the point. You want the conference to go forward and so did my father. I will attend in one week, on one condition. We will not extradite the prisoners and you will make no attempt to rescue them in a military operation. We would consider any such attempt an act of war.
So we again have another time bracket here since there was undoubtably a few days that went by while Kronos One went back to Klingon space and everyone assessed what to do next. But it is interesting that everything could go forward in just a week at another location so easily, giving some indication that the E-A and Kronos One would not have spent about 6 weeks going to Earth as per the original plan.
So 8,111c conservatively and perhaps 182,500c or better on the high end of things.
From TOS' "Arena":
(Kirk suddenly appears in front of the crew, who all leap to their feet.)
UHURA: Captain! Are you all right?
KIRK: I don't know. I don't know. All right, everybody. Back to your posts. Let's get out of here.
SULU: Captain.
KIRK: Mister Sulu.
SULU: It's impossible, but there's Sirius over there when it should be here. And Canopus. And Arcanis. We're. All of a sudden, we're clear across the galaxy, five hundred parsecs from where we are I mean, were. I mean
KIRK: Don't try and figure it out, Mister Sulu. Just plot a course for us back to Cestus Three.
SULU: Aye, aye, sir.
Now 500 parsecs is 1,630 light years or 594,950 light days. To travel across that distance at a mere l,000c would mean a 595 day trip, or just under 20 months. This means the ship would've consumed almost two years of the 5 year mission just getting back to Cestus III, and that obviously did not happen. Since the following week the ship has another adventure and a year later is back at Earth, that means to make the trip in any reasonable length of time (14 days or less), the ship must be doing better than 50,000c on average.
Continuing further research into TOS warp speeds, I found something interesting in the season two episode "The Gamesters of Triskelion". The context is that while preparing to beam down on a mission to Gamma Two, an uninhabited planetoid with an automatic communications and astrogation station, the landing party consisting of Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura are kidnapped by a race of powerful beings called the Providers, who steal members of different races from all over the galaxy and use them for brutal blood sports. Meanwhile Spock, McCoy and Scotty search for their missing crewmates and friends. Here is the relevant interesting dialog during the search:
SPOCK: They are not within the confines of this solar system.
MCCOY: It's been nearly an hour. Can people live that long as disassembled atoms in a transporter beam?
This occurs after the kidnapping of the landing party from off the Enterprise's transporter pad and Kirk and company have been forced to endure brutal induction and training among the Providers' Thralls. Later Spock and the Enterprise crew determine via sensors that the landing party is not in the Gamma system at all and we get this:
SPOCK: Captain's log, stardate 3259.2. First Officer Spock in command. The Captain, Lieutenant Uhura, and Ensign Chekov have been missing for nearly two hours. Computer probability projections are useless due to insufficient data.
HAINES: (A woman in gold uniform at Spock's station) Mister Spock, I'm getting a fluctuating energy reading on this hydrogen cloud. It's faint, sir, but it consistently reads an excess of predictable energy level.
SPOCK: Interesting. It seems to be an ionisation trail.
MCCOY: What would account for that, Spock?
SPOCK: Exactly the question I have just fed to the computers, Doctor. And the answer is, nothing known to us would account for it.
SCOTT: Well, the transporter has neither the power nor the range to account for that.
SPOCK: Plot a follow course, Ensign Haines.
HAINES: (now in Chekov's seat) Aye, sir.
MCCOY: You're going to leave here without them and run off on some wild goose chase halfway across the galaxy just because you found a discrepancy in a hydrogen cloud?
SPOCK: Doctor, I am chasing the Captain, Lieutenant Uhura, and Ensign Chekov, not some wild aquatic fowl. This is the only lead we've had.
HAINES: Course plotted and laid in.
SPOCK: Initiate. Warp factor two.
So they have detected the ionization trail left by the Providers' transport beam and are pursuing off at warp 2 only, and 2 hours has passed from when Kirk and crew, who continue to endure brutal treatment at the hands of the Providers and the Thralls in between when they were captured and when the second piece of relevant dialog occurs:
MCCOY: This is ridiculous. There's nothing out there. Nothing at all.
SCOTT: We certainly seem to be heading into an empty sector.
SPOCK: Projecting back along the path of ionisation, the nearest system is M two four alpha.
SCOTT: That must be two dozen light years away.
SPOCK: Eleven point six three zero.
MCCOY: Are you suggesting that they could have transported over a distance of? You're out of your Vulcan mind, Spock.
SPOCK: I'm suggesting nothing, Doctor. I am merely pursuing the only logical course available to us.
So, only hours are going by, and the ship may still only be at warp 2, but now we know the nearest system is some 11.63 light years away, though it has been some time since the Enterprise left the Gamma system
SPOCK: Mister Scott, can we manage anything faster than warp six?
SCOTT: It's my opinion that we've gone too far as it is, sir.
MCCOY: He's right, Spock. We've lost Jim and the others on Gamma Two. Now you've dragged us a dozen light years on some wild hunch that
SPOCK: Doctor, I do not respond to hunches. No transporter malfunction was responsible for the disappearance. They were not within the Gamma system. A focused beam of extremely high-intensity light was directed into the Gamma system from the trinary system we are now approaching. No known natural phenomena could have caused that beam. Does that clarify the situation?
MCCOY: No, it doesn't. It's still a fancy way of saying that you're playing a hunch. well, my hunch is that they're back on Gamma Two dead or alive and I still want another search.
SCOTT: Doctor McCoy speaks for me, too, sir.
SPOCK: I see. (pause) Gentlemen, I am in command of this vessel, and we shall continue on our present course. (conspiratorial whisper) Unless it is your intention to declare a mutiny.
SCOTT; Mister Spock!
MCCOY: Who said anything about a mutiny, you stubborn, pointed-eared. All right. If we don't find them here, do we still have another search on Gamma Two?
SPOCK: Agreed. Mister Scott, could you manage warp seven?
SCOTT: I would be more than content to do so, sir, and maybe a wee bit more.
SPOCK: Ensign, warp seven.
So the ship may have accelerated or be prepared to go to warp six, but at the end of the conversation is ordered to warp 7, which is not the fastest speed the ship can go, but still on the higher end of things, still there has been some time of searching back along the ionization trail to the star system they are approaching. Finally this after a relatively short interval of Kirk and company attempting escape and enduring yet more brutal treatment:
HAINES:Standard orbit.
SPOCK: Sensors indicate only one concentration of life forms on the planet, on the lower hemisphere. Humanoid readings.
MCCOY: Well, at least that gives our landing force a starting point.
So they reach the planet after what cannot be more than mere hours at most and this after accelerating to warp 7 from possibly warp 6, or even just warp 2. So the following can be derived from the episode: Two hours were spent searching the Gamma system looking for the landing party, then the ship sets out across a dozen light years to reach the Providers world of Triskelion, which means based on the events seen and experienced by the landing party and all other dialog, only mere hours went by to cross that distance. There is certainly no indication that a full day went by, or lighting conditions on the planet indicating day-night cycle to show such. So perhaps at most 6 hours total went by, with 4 or so of that of that being the Enterprise making the transit and accelerating from warp 2 to warp 7. So the following: 12 light years x 365 = 4,380 light days. If it took the Enterprise a whole day to get there, that is the lowest warp speed we could reasonably derive from this. But there is no indication of that, so 4,380 light days x 24 = 105,120 light hours. Given that the flow of the search and the training segments on Triskelion only took about 30 to 40 minutes after the 2 hour estimate is given to search Gamma 2 and the entire system system is in, it would be tempting to argue for mere minutes, but I feel that would be disingenuous and self-serving, and10 hours will be the number I will use for the calculation. So 105,120 light hours divided by 10 = 10,512c. This is remarkably close to the low-end average of the "Return to Tomorrow" quote, which in turn helps to establish TOS medium range warp speeds.
So warp 7 = 10,512c
Now these make for good medium-range warp speeds; 8,000 to 200,000c and the Warp Speed List thread itself makes for an excellent archive of warp speeds from all the series.
Now Brian's objection is that warp speeds are all over the place and he doesn't want to do the work involved in correlating and finding a happy mean average from them all, which in turn is his excuse for defaulting to the non-canon Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual. Brian makes the bold statement that I must not have watched his Miscellaneous video at SciFights.
Sorry, Brian, but that's just not true. I have watched it, and I find your reasoning for using the TNG TM to be based on a combination of Appeal to Authority and Circular Reasoning fallacies of argument. Furthermore, I am appalled that Brian would also in his Q&A video defend such a thing by making a False Dilemma fallacy argument by presenting the situation as either he picks one extreme or the other of the warp speed ranges.
To that I say politely "Bull".
That's way too black and white a set of choices. Brian surely is aware that 359, myself, and others have done in putting together the Warp Speeds List. Plus there is an averaging of warp speeds that have been done. So he has a big set of data he can use already at his finger tips for that purpose.
Secondly, he could also do as Nowhereman10 has suggested: Compare like things to each other. I know, having extensively made notes watching his Case Study video, that he made mention of the disparate hyperspace speeds in Babylon 5 (B5). The highest of which is around 21,000c. I noted in my original thesis that Brian a bit disingenuously handwaved away the discrepancies with an Ad Hoc explanation that the Earth Force-related lower speeds are because of the EFA's lower tech level than the Minbari. But if that were true, then why were Earth Force ships shown easily keeping up in hyperspace with Minbari and other ships? Earth's hyperspace tech came from the Centauri Republic, and there is no mention the Centauri sold inferior hyperdrive engines or gates to Earth. So, unless Brian can present more evidence, I have to conclude that there is no real difference between them and that Brian should therefore treat B5 inconsistencies the same way he does TOS ones. That is only fair, makes good logical sense, and does not rely on a non-canon book, which by Brian's own admittance, is not consistent internally.
If Brian does not wish to do that, he should then find a B5 technical manual with the same level of officialness and use that for comparison. Again, what you do for one, you do for the other, it's the fair way to do this.
So the comparison would look something like this:
Star Trek TOS High End Speeds: 766,203c
Babylon 5 High End Speeds: 21,000c
Winner: Star Trek TOS
I mean, that's not hard to do, and it is truly fair, and does not require us to throw out high ends, medium range, and low ends for either side.
With that I hope that this thoroughly covers Brian's answers in that part of the video. In the next part I'll cover the answers Brian gave to the planetary bombardment and firepower questions.
-Mike