Starfleet Jedi

How powerful of a weapons is the Navagional Deflector dish of Galaxy class starship. In Star Terk Best Both world part one. It is said Navagional Deflector dish used weapon could destory both Galaxy class starship that using that and the borg cube in thoey.

I'd think you'd actually need to see it destroy something to get a decent number, unless you want to do the whole "borg cube assumed to be X by X cube of iron" thing.

As a side note, anyone else ever have an issue with that? I get that it was an ad hoc solution and they handled it well in the ep but the navigational deflector is potentially more powerful then the ships actual weapons?

It stands to reason that shields/deflectors are more powerfull than the weapons that are used against them.

If they where not, a single hit from any weapon would breach them ;)

Roondar wrote:It stands to reason that shields/deflectors are more powerfull than the weapons that are used against them.

If they where not, a single hit from any weapon would breach them ;)

Yes but this was the navigational deflector.

The Dude wrote:

Roondar wrote:It stands to reason that shields/deflectors are more powerfull than the weapons that are used against them.

If they where not, a single hit from any weapon would breach them ;)

Yes but this was the navigational deflector.

Quite, quite.. I should've read more carefully ;)

Well, the navigational deflector is used to push aside (small) objects and dust in the path of the Enterprise as it flies at warp. I've not done the math on that, but it's possible that doing this in a proper timeframe (considering the speed at which the E-D flies the objects and dust have to be moved out of the way quite quickly) requires a lot of energy.

As an example: if some object (say a mini-meteorite) approaches the E-D dead on while it's flying at a 1000c, the deflector will have to impart enough energy to change the speed and direction of the object so that it no longer hits the E-D.

Since objects in realspace can't exceed c, that means the field will have to extend far enough ahead (and produce enough force) to move the object out of the way at sublight speeds before the E-D is present. That either implies a rather large range for the deflector (since the E-D is so incredible fast and hence closes in on the object really rapidly) or a high level of power (since it has to move objects out of the way really fast if it doesn't extend very far).

The maximum distance the object needs to move is not so great (only a couple of hundred meters at maximum), but the speed at which it might need to be moved could be really high.

I remember in Star Terk First contact that the Federation fleet was able to destroy a Borg cube by hit a big spot on the Borg cube that was already heavily damage. I guess that lower limits of Galaxy class Navigational deflector dish as a weapon. Does any one known how many quantum torpedoes it take blast a hole that big a Borg cube. Just try to lower limits of how powerful of a weapon a Galaxy class Navigational Deflector dish is.

Jasonb wrote:I remember in Star Terk First contact that the Federation fleet was able to destroy a Borg cube by hit a big spot on the Borg cube that was already heavily damage. I guess that lower limits of Galaxy class Navigational deflector dish as a weapon. Does any one known how many quantum torpedoes it take blast a hole that big a Borg cube. Just try to lower limits of how powerful of a weapon a Galaxy class Navigational Deflector dish is.

That wouldn't really be accurate though - the Borg vessel in ST:FC had it's shields up and it's adaption worked. The idea of the deflector beam was to use a 'frequency' which bypassed the shields/adaption altogether.

Ergo, the deflectorbeam would need less power to reach the same goal as normal weapons would.

Yes the borg did adaption in star terk best of both worlds to Galaxy class Navigational deflector dish . We most also remember that borg can adaption with in secounds. So Galaxy class deflector dish would have to be able drill a hole like that less in less then a few seconds. I say at least four secounds at most more likely three.

Jasonb wrote:Yes the borg did adaption in star terk best of both worlds to Galaxy class Navigational deflector dish . We most also remember that borg can adaption with in secounds. So Galaxy class deflector dish would have to be able drill a hole like that less in less then a few seconds. I say at least four secounds at most more likely three.

Do note, the E-D used it's phasers on a cube in the very first episode against the Borg (Q Who) and shot something like 15-20% of the entire cube straight to hell in one blast. In that respect the 'deflector dish weapon' was not aiming at a level of destruction totally out of line with what they normally achieve (though it obviously was meant to be more powerful than the average phaser blast).

Galaxy class Navigational deflector dish send out energy at the level that could destroy a USS Enterprise D with the Borg cube if was to close. I also would think that if shield would be up strength it do USS Enterprise D no good. Known normal distance of Federation starship fire at it target. If we known the amount damage a Galaxy class starship can take before be destroy. I do not science knowledge did amount heat and energy lost before effect Galaxy class starship other wise I could do it myself.
Here why do think Q who things should note read down would.
Then Borg cube most likely was mad of things that got eat up by phasers beams very easily. We have see phasers different effects on different kinds of materials. While this alone could easily explain why Star Trek (Q Who) USS Enterprise was able to ate up nearly 15% Borg cube. While in Star Treks the best of both worlds even when USS Enterprise D was able to do damage to that Borg cube it was smell. We have never seen the phaser being able to do this to any other starship in Star Trek.

The problem is that destroy can mean many things.
The E-D could have been destroyed as follows:

• Physically being completely blown up by the power of the explosion created by the beam as it destroyed the cube (this is the highest possible outcome energetically speaking and the one you are wanting to have calculated)
• Critically damaged, ending up in warp-core breach or similar by the power of the explosion created by the beam as it destroyed the cube
• Exploded from within by generating the beam
• Critically damaged internally by the ship being unable to keep up with the power requirements, blowing out safeties etc, eventually destroying the ship (not by the beam itself, but by the side effects of creating it)

And that's just what I can think up right now, there could be more ways for that beam to lead to the E-D's destruction. We have no reason to take the highest possible outcome over the lowest, so we can't calculate any yields. Likewise, a similar list could be made for what exactly constitutes a destroyed Borg cube.

--

About the Q Who phasers and their lack of effect later on, the effect is rather similar to the effect of the Cardassian weapons platforms (eating large quantities of material very rappidly). It's possible the Borg re-made their cubes to resist phasers better, but it's also possible that this is just what happens when the Borg have not adapted at all and that the later encounters against the Borg happened with some level of weapons adaption already in place.

Jasonb wrote:I remember in Star Terk First contact that the Federation fleet was able to destroy a Borg cube by hit a big spot on the Borg cube that was already heavily damage. I guess that lower limits of Galaxy class Navigational deflector dish as a weapon. Does any one known how many quantum torpedoes it take blast a hole that big a Borg cube. Just try to lower limits of how powerful of a weapon a Galaxy class Navigational Deflector dish is.

Jason, the fleet's strike on the Borg cube was not done to a previously heavily damaged section of the cube, it was done to what was thought to be a minor, inconsequential system, which would have been ignored had it not been for Picard's knowledge of the Borg and his subsequent orders to fire there.
-Mike

Roondar wrote: About the Q Who phasers and their lack of effect later on, the effect is rather similar to the effect of the Cardassian weapons platforms (eating large quantities of material very rappidly). It's possible the Borg re-made their cubes to resist phasers better, but it's also possible that this is just what happens when the Borg have not adapted at all and that the later encounters against the Borg happened with some level of weapons adaption already in place.

This is nothing unique. In VOY's "Scorpion, Parts I & II", if you watch carefully the Species 8472 weapons go from 1-2 shots kill a Borg cube to requiring many ships and a number of shots in large-scale fleet actions. So while the Borg were adapting in that case, they were doing so too slowly to help turn the tide of the war.
-Mike

Jasonb wrote:How powerful of a weapons is the Navagional Deflector dish of Galaxy class starship. In Star Terk Best Both world part one. It is said Navagional Deflector dish used weapon could destory both Galaxy class starship that using that and the borg cube in thoey.

The real problem is that we don't have a situation where the nav deflector blasted into another ship that way. Neither do we have a good situation where the deflector weapon was used on a well-defined natural object, such as an asteroid. Alas, the closest we have to that is the nav deflector being used to fire technobabble crap at a technobabble asteroid core in TNG's "The Cost of Living".

Fortunately, we do have statements of both an upper and lower nature about Trek power generation capabilities, and that can be used to give us an idea of the potential power range for the GCS nav deflector. The lower limits would place it in the single-digit terawatt range, while the upper limit would be well into the exawatt and zotawatt range!
-Mike

Mike DiCenso wrote:

Roondar wrote: About the Q Who phasers and their lack of effect later on, the effect is rather similar to the effect of the Cardassian weapons platforms (eating large quantities of material very rappidly). It's possible the Borg re-made their cubes to resist phasers better, but it's also possible that this is just what happens when the Borg have not adapted at all and that the later encounters against the Borg happened with some level of weapons adaption already in place.

This is nothing unique. In VOY's "Scorpion, Parts I & II", if you watch carefully the Species 8472 weapons go from 1-2 shots kill a Borg cube to requiring many ships and a number of shots in large-scale fleet actions. So while the Borg were adapting in that case, they were doing so too slowly to help turn the tide of the war.
-Mike

It's always nice to see ones idea reinforced. I had forgotten about that ;)