Battle of Endor with trek ships

[Nowhereman10]

Ironically enough, our buddy SWST gave us another example of long range Trek...

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

Those quantum torpedoes would have to be travelling in seconds over thousands of kilometers to even hit the upper levels of the planet's atmosphere, never mind the surface. Also this is an example of fairly high firepower. The images come from the season five episode "For the Uniform" with Sisko obsessively pursing former Starfleet officer turned Maquis Michael Eddington.

The Defiant is seen in this image orbiting far enough away that the entire planet is easily visible.




The torpedoes were fired so that they would detonate in the planet's atmosphere, and were only intended to scatter trilithium into the planet's atmosphere and make it uninhabitable for the human Maquis colonists living there. The following image is from Trekcore and shows the explosions after the intense bright flash they intitally made, then appear to settle down:



Assuming the planet is the about same size as Earth, the larger of the two I would roughly estimate at 220 km, given that it is approximately 29 times smaller than the visible half of the planet. This being a high altitude airburst at 50 km per the dialog:

SISKO: Major, I want you to send the following message on all Maquis frequencies. To all the members of the Maquis resistance. This is Captain Sisko of the USS Defiant. In response to the Maquis's use of biogenic weapons in their recent attacks, I am about to take the following action. In exactly one hour, I will detonate two quantum torpedoes that will scatter trilithium resin in the atmosphere of Solosos Three. I thereby will make the planet uninhabitable to all human life for the next fifty years. I suggest evacuation plans begin immediately. What are you waiting for, people? Carry out your orders.
(Later, orbiting Solosos Three.)

WORF: Set torpedo targets to fifty kilometres above ground level.

...it's no wonder it appears to be dissipating quickly. There isn't as much for the torpedoes' explosions to interact with as it would if they were surface detonations. According to Wong's nuclear weapon's calculator, this blast would be somewhere between 500 megatons and 1 gigaton.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

...seriously?







Hmmm...the latter two, the Star Wars examples, clearly show bigger explosions and larger aftereffects, including if you scale them properly.

And did you seriously claim that the quantum torpedo fireballs are hundreds of kms? Seriously? Wow. They're a few kms, maybe in the ten's.

[Nowhereman10]

Mr. Oragahn has already debunked the VSD BDZ trading card by showing that the body depicited is not spherical, but somewhat oblate:

Also, a classical one, which I know I put somewhere else on that website, but which is always good to bring back:

A Victory-class star destroyer bombarding an unshielded planet's surface to slag in a Base Delta Zero operation. [STAR WARS Vehicles trading cards]

• • 

Teratons!

The truth:

• • 

Teraw00ts?
Not only there's no proof it's a planet at all, but there's no reason to assume it's a large object either.
For all we know, we may see a fraction of a small asteroid (example is Toutatis, 4.5 × 2.4 × 1.9 km).
See:

• • 

The asteroid would have to be bigger to match the length of the Star Destroyer (that one lacks the lateral double fins), which is 900 m. Mind you on this picture the asteroid is about 8 times longer than the VSD. That would make the asteroid 7.2 km long.

...which makes it makes it far too small to be a proper planet, by any definition, and there is no sign of an atmosphere of any kind on that body.

As for the rest of it, it's fairly straight forward. The SDs an Nebulons are orbiting only a few hundred km above whatever planet that is in the trading card. They are clearly firing with every freaking thing they've got, plus there are two SSDs participating in the bombardment. Over a hundred turbolaser bolts, and not one of them is making a mushroom cloud thousands of km wide, just under a few tens of km at best. The cloud layer we see around it is making for the "lava" appearance, there is no actual molten rock anywhere, just orange glow and mushroom clouds. The total devastation is maybe a thousand km wide.

Contrast that with the "For the Uniform" example, where we clearly, without any doubt, see the Defiant firing from somewhere between 10,000 to 20,000 km away given that we can see the ENTIRE PLANET in the first image and MOST OF IT IN THE SECOND. Over two-thirds of the planet's northern hemisphere, which was able to support Human life, clearly has a visible atmosphere (if it didn't how would the trilithium get dispersed in it's atmosphere?).

The measurements in the second pic are as follows: the planet measures 180 mm top to bottom. the large explosion measures in at 6 mm in diameter. 180/6 = 30. So my rough measurement from earlier was just slightly off. Now, assuming this planet is the same size as Earth with a mean radius of 6,371 km. So, 6,371/30 = 212.3 km for the explosion's diameter. Bear in mind this is a high-altitude blast at 50 km with very little atmosphere for the explosion to interact with. So any estimate for a yeild would be fairly conservative, I would wager. And this was all just to deliver trilithium to despoil the planet for humans... not to do a surface bombardment to kill anyone, or to destroy anything. That's really damn impressive.

Now, I'd like to see some real counter evidence, SWST. At this point you're just hand waving everything away you don't like and using fake evidence to try and prove your right.

[Trinoya]

...seriously?

.... They are that big.. with the warheads... removed and designed for chemical distribution (which they did in seconds)...

...

And as you have not retracted anything from your false evidence... I can only assume you're actually trolling at this point. You have been reported.

[Mike DiCenso]

Actually, in fairness, that was with warheads, default or otherwise as the following dialog shows:

SISKO: Commander, prepare two quantum torpedoes. Have engineering attach a cargo pod with two hundred kilograms of trilithium to each torpedo.

WORF: Yes, sir, but

SISKO: But what?

WORF: The extra mass of the cargo pods will make the torpedo less effective. Maquis Raiders are small and manoeuvrable.

SISKO: I'm not planning to fire at any ships, Mister Worf. Major, what is the nearest Maquis colony.

They just added a pod to the side of each torp, not replaced a warhead with trilithium.

That being said, SWST has lost the argument completely here and elswhere since he/she/it is simply using nothing but Leo1/Vympel-like tactics of stalling and distortion rather than actually address anyone's arguements or evidence, and has provided little evidence in return. As someone pointed out, this is kind of behavior gets you banned on other forums. Notice how quick SWST is to declare victory when WILGA simply expressed disgust at his/her/it's behavior.
-Mike

[StarWarsStarTrek]

...seriously?

.... They are that big.. with the warheads... removed and designed for chemical distribution (which they did in seconds)...

...

And as you have not retracted anything from your false evidence... I can only assume you're actually trolling at this point. You have been reported.

Clearly your scaling is way off. The fireballs are maybe 50 kms in diameter. Your definition of troll is also way off. You also didn't respond to my post, except for the first word.

[Mike DiCenso]

Really, out of the 18 examples I bring out, you only take out 2?
That still leaves 16 examples from a very quick search, so still not a problem...

Well, to add to your list of errors, you also goofed up on "Errand of Mercy" as well. Watch the battle here between the Enterprise and a Klingon ship.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

...seriously?

.... They are that big.. with the warheads... removed and designed for chemical distribution (which they did in seconds)...

...

And as you have not retracted anything from your false evidence... I can only assume you're actually trolling at this point. You have been reported.

Clearly your scaling is way off. The fireballs are maybe 50 kms in diameter. Your definition of troll is also way off. You also didn't respond to my post, except for the first word.

You need to provide counter-evidence. You have failed to do so. You must prove that the fireballs are indeed ~50 km, or concede the issue. As for the trolling complaint issue, the rules unfortunately do not forbid obstinate behavior, however annoying.
-Mike

[Trinoya]

Ah, sadly.

...

Then I suppose it is best to simply wash our hands of him. Farewell and your concessions have been accepted SWST.

[Mike DiCenso]

That being said, SWST is riding the ragged edge of being a troll, IMO. Dishonesty is also against the forum rules, and technically the presenting of the false evidence could fall under breaking that rule.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

Ah, sadly.

...

Then I suppose it is best to simply wash our hands of him. Farewell and your concessions have been accepted SWST.

Actually, claiming concession when none is offered is trolling. It's one of the classic types of trolling I have offered warnings about many times. Let's not go down that road. I know it's a popular tactic on SBC and SDN, but that doesn't change its essential nature. I am disappointed to see it employed here, and a little concerned to see that our community has drifted this far from my vision since I decided to pass the day-to-day monitoring of the forum into Mike DiCenso and Praeothmin's hands.

SWST is not required to offer concessions, or even evidence, by the rules. He is not required to arrive at correct conclusions. If he wishes, he may debate solely using unfounded assertions without ever providing a shred of evidence. You, in turn, may point out that lack of evidence is utterly unconvincing, but as long as he remains polite and respectful, he may disagree with you however he likes. (I recommend that he employ good arguments if he wishes to convince anyone of anything; but his choice of arguments is up to him.)

This thread was brought to my attention by the moderation staff; I hope that we can move on and resume some variety of productive discussion now. I hope everybody can take a lesson from this.

[Who is like God arbour]

Actually, claiming concession when none is offered is trolling. It's one of the classic types of trolling I have offered warnings about many times.

In that case, StarWarsStarTrek has trolled and I hope he/she/it gets a warning for it:

• • • • StarWarsStarTrek, from now on I will not continue to debate with you.
        
        It's obviously that you haven't seen most of the Star Trek episodes and haven't read the books and novels you are talking about. You are only parroting what others have said and you are ignoring all evidences that were provided.
        
        Regardless what we are saying, you will ignore it and will never adjust your opinion.
        
        And not providing sound arguments yourself, this debate is not able to stimulate our own intellect or to get us to adjust our own opinion.
        
        We could continue that for years and nothing will come out of it.

• • • • Concession accepted. [...]

I didn't say that I concede anything. I only said that I do not continue that debate because I do not see any sense in it. With claiming that I conceded, he/she/it trolled and has to get at least a warning.

Notice how quick SWST is to declare victory when WILGA simply expressed disgust at his/her/it's behavior.

That's the problem of denial.

He/she/it will never accept anything that goes against his/her/its preconceived opinion.

Now he/she/it has convinced himself/herself/itself that he/she/it is the better debater and has brought me to concede anything - although I haven't said such a thing.

If it satisfy him/her/it to believe it, it shows only how disconnected from reality he/she/it is.

Someone who would really be interested in that debate, would at least try to forward any sound arguments to convince others and see it as an own shortcoming if one fails to do so.

But not StarWarsStarTrek.

He/she/it simply continues this debate until nobody wants to continue it and, when he/she/it is the last one standing, he/she/it will claim victory - as if that says anything about the truth.

Or, when he looses its own motivation to continue that debate, he/she/it simply will vanish and never come back.

And this confirms only my decision to stop to debate with StarWarsStarTrek. There is no end to it and no sense.

[Trinoya]

Actually, claiming concession when none is offered is trolling.

I'm well aware of the anti-calling concession nature of the board and did so fully aware of the response it would entail. However; I will accept the associated warning, and I do apologize for it, but I stand by it as a response to his behavior. If for nothing else it means the associated warning must extend to him.

Since he HAS been polite I don't want him to fall by the wayside, but we can only bang a head against a wall for so long before you realize that you're not gonna break through.

This thread was brought to my attention by the moderation staff; I hope that we can move on and resume some variety of productive discussion now. I hope everybody can take a lesson from this.

Again, my apologies... I do wish there was an arbiter position or some such for when these things crop up, and I do wish that the discussion can be achieve a productive goal... but I would argue that SWST isn't proving to be 'good' for achieving it, and I would argue that at this point going back to that achieving that is on him.

As such, if he is willing to retract his statement on concessions, I will retract mine. I believe that would be a civil next step.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

Clearly your scaling is way off. The fireballs are maybe 50 kms in diameter. Your definition of troll is also way off. You also didn't respond to my post, except for the first word.

You need to provide counter-evidence. You have failed to do so. You must prove that the fireballs are indeed ~50 km, or concede the issue. As for the trolling complaint issue, the rules unfortunately do not forbid obstinate
behavior, however annoying.
-Mike

Your scaling has several problems, most notably the assumption that the planet is Earth sized, the ignoring of the fact that the entire planet wasn't in the shot and the lack of justification for your claim that the SW picture has smaller fireballs, especially since the right of the picture shows a glimpse of an extremely large fireball.

The planet in the ST example only had about half of it's diameter in the picture, and yet you used the full diameter in scaling the fireball? That's ridiculous.

Look to the far right of the SW mass bdz photo. It shows a glimpse of an extremely large fireball. Near the middle of the picture are smaller but still large explosions. Logically, these are probably the light turbolasers, the slightly larger one near the right are medium ones and then the glimpse of one at the far right is a heavy. They're all bigger than the qt, and the prescence of heavy smoke and molten lava implies large use of the heavy turbolasers.

[User1462]

The examples of BVR Trek space combat all seem to be during one on one ship combat, not a full on space battle. Therefore, Trek ships seem to have trouble coordinating attacks in a large scale battle for BVR. Therefore, in the context of this thread and most relevant space battles, the Trek ships will effectively have <10 km attacking ranges.

Full scale battles were only seen during DS9, where we had visual ranges regularly used. And I don't see any reason why it would be impossible for ships to use weapons on long range while in fleet formation.

The fact is that Trek ships cannot fight at BVR in large scale space battles. Why? Because they can't coordinate the attacks, or they aren't accurate enough, etc. The point is that they can't, and this is an observed fact based on lots of footage.

Just because they don't, doesn't mean they CAN'T-- simply that it would be relatively ineffective against each other, since long-range attacks are less effective due to beam-spread and time-delay etc, probably allowing the computers to adapt the shields to the incoming attack, by increasing them in a certain spot and frequency etc. Meanwhile a ship that's maneuvering at close range can fire at any time and angle, since it's too unpredictable.

Naturally this wouldn't be a problem against SW ships, which have sub-light shields and sensors, electronic computers etc; basically you're talking a non-combat situation.