Challenge: Invade the Star Wars galaxy

[Mike DiCenso]

It's above all very odd, as usual with phasers.
I fortunately had saved the video clip from youtube before it got taken off.

First of all, the bolts are focused, more on the x axis than y. We see that because of their position in the geometric form one can draw as they're headed for the target. Which means that your calculation is probably quite off. By the look of it, the width between the two vertical pairs of bolts seem to be half of what it is when fired.

Secondly, the effects at the point of impact are very tame. There's clearly not even a kiloton worth of DET delivered on the surface. After a while, the matter at the point of impact begins to slowly crack, shine and then the whole object goes off in a chain reaction.
Not to say that there's no way to ascertain how much matter was truly vaporized at all.

I tried looking up to see if the video is still available, but cannot find it. I know you tend to exaggerate the "slowness" but the Defiant is shown firing for about 2.5 seconds in the trailer and the bolts travel over the 10 km distance to the comet over a couple more seconds with about ten different sets apparently burrowing through the comet material. When the comet explodes it turns a rather bright reddish-orange color over all, then explodes, all within a couple seconds indicating rapid thermal expansion occurred. Later when the shuttle is going by we see fragments no much bigger than the shuttle itself. Given that the original mass of this thing was thousands of times greater in size, that would qualify as mostly vaporized. When the cracking occurs we see this:





Look carefully, there are phaser bolts still heading towards the comet, even as most of the mass is glowing very red-hot and the surface is very riddled with cracks from the previous phaser impacts. This is very DET-like. The melt energies I get when run through Wong's calculator indicate 108 megatons. So the comet was already glowing red and breaking up even before the phaser bolts stopped impacting, thus this still remains a very high-end firepower event for Trek. Also the fact that the comet is spherical is another odd thing. At 1.2 km, the thing should not be pulled by gravity into a state of hydrostatic equiliberium, and yet there it is. So we are faced with the silithium being possibly very dense as it did form the core of the nucleus. Thus any firepower figures you derive from the event may well be very conservative.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

Oh as an addendum to the previous post, my numbers were very conservative. The bolts in the latest image are actually much closer to the comet than the previous one. The width of the narrowest portion of the bolt sets is only .17" compared to the previous .22". This ups the ratio to nearly 20 to 1 and makes the nucleus about 1,947 meters wide, if we also go another step further; we use the official Defiant beam of 134 meters. The phaser emitters are then at least 100 meters apart and so the melt and vaporization energies are 489 megatons and 2.4 gigatons respectively.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Bad Mr. O! Stop giving the troll ammo!

Mike's fault. He accepted to argue with him first. By making a mistake, he's even giving more opportunities for the troll to regenerate and continue. If anything, I put and end to this leak.

[Mr. Oragahn]

I tried looking up to see if the video is still available, but cannot find it. I know you tend to exaggerate the "slowness" but the Defiant is shown firing for about 2.5 seconds in the trailer and the bolts travel over the 10 km distance to the comet over a couple more seconds with about ten different sets apparently burrowing through the comet material. When the comet explodes it turns a rather bright reddish-orange color over all, then explodes, all within a couple seconds indicating rapid thermal expansion occurred.

It occurred, but not immediately. It seems the silithium was a problem that would easily make the comet break up. It's possibly that stuff is explosive to some degree if you pour too much high energy into it, so O'brien planned to spread energy smoothly all over the visible surface and proceed layer by layer, from what I get.
Point is, it's possible that the silithing was responsible of the final burst.
If not, that's another CR effect that's noticed with phasers of any caliber, from hand phaser to naval weapon banks.

Later when the shuttle is going by we see fragments no much bigger than the shuttle itself. Given that the original mass of this thing was thousands of times greater in size, that would qualify as mostly vaporized. When the cracking occurs we see this:



Look carefully, there are phaser bolts still heading towards the comet, even as most of the mass is glowing very red-hot and the surface is very riddled with cracks from the previous phaser impacts. This is very DET-like.

How do you know that? Do you have a physics paper on the appearance of large amounts of ice subjected to tera/petajoule bursts of energy?
One thing I know is that if the bolts were anywhere what you claimed, they'd actually be cracking the ice with huge blasts long before anything could warm up/start glowing red. I don't even know how the fuck the thing can begin to glow red on its own, unless the bolts are actually starting a reaction with the silithium inside, and it shines through the ice.
If anything, there's precisely very little DET effects to observe.
Anything major that happens, it happens only at a certain point, while the rate of firing and yield of bolts doesn't change at all : the yields is easily understood because there's no sudden kilotonish or megatonish blast effect on the surface that would be caused by the latest phaser bolts.

The melt energies I get when run through Wong's calculator indicate 108 megatons. So the comet was already glowing red and breaking up even before the phaser bolts stopped impacting, thus this still remains a very high-end firepower event for Trek. Also the fact that the comet is spherical is another odd thing. At 1.2 km, the thing should not be pulled by gravity into a state of hydrostatic equiliberium, and yet there it is. So we are faced with the silithium being possibly very dense as it did form the core of the nucleus. Thus any firepower figures you derive from the event may well be very conservative.
-Mike

It doesn't prove that we're dealing with high levels of the DET at all, for the reasons exposed above.
The core may be very dense, OK, that's just another odd parameter that does not change anything to the way the bolts reacted with the frozen surface.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Oh as an addendum to the previous post, my numbers were very conservative. The bolts in the latest image are actually much closer to the comet than the previous one. The width of the narrowest portion of the bolt sets is only .17" compared to the previous .22". This ups the ratio to nearly 20 to 1 and makes the nucleus about 1,947 meters wide, if we also go another step further; we use the official Defiant beam of 134 meters. The phaser emitters are then at least 100 meters apart and so the melt and vaporization energies are 489 megatons and 2.4 gigatons respectively.
-Mike

As I said, a salvo is contracted on its width, so much that it gets narrower, but the distance between the upper bolts and lower bolts doesn't change however.

[StarWarsStarTrek]

He's not quoting sources. He refrences them nontransparently as he makes various calculations based upon several assumptions. The numbers, the numbers you gave me, are the product of his work not a sourcebook. Now perhaps the WEG books support him completely, maybe it is completely hundred percent backed by canon, but he doesn't provide any of it to know. None of the evidence which made him make the assumptions he did.

You're right.

...just a moment. I'm going to read into it some more. BTW, are you responding soon?

[sonofccn]

He's not quoting sources. He refrences them nontransparently as he makes various calculations based upon several assumptions. The numbers, the numbers you gave me, are the product of his work not a sourcebook. Now perhaps the WEG books support him completely, maybe it is completely hundred percent backed by canon, but he doesn't provide any of it to know. None of the evidence which made him make the assumptions he did.

You're right.

...just a moment. I'm going to read into it some more. BTW, are you responding soon?

Actually I was waiting to clear this issue.

Trek-Firing range

KIM: We've got a starship on our tail. Nebula class.
PARIS: I'll try to lose them, Harry, but they're a lot faster than we are.
MAN [OC]: Attention runabout Yellowstone. Power down your engines or we will open fire.
KIM: They're going to try to do everything they can to stop us. They think we're trying to steal this prototype.
PARIS: They're closing to five thousand kilometres.
(Bang!)
KIM: Shields down to seventy percent. Fifty percent.
(Bang! Sparks.)

Five thousand kilometers.

PARIS: Thirty thousand kilometres and closing.
JANEWAY: Target their power core.

Thirty thousand and their targeting power core.

JANEWAY: All right, that's enough. Tuvok, give them a phaser sweep with the forward array. Don't destroy any of them, just let them know we're not going to sit here like ducks.
TUVOK: Aye Captain.
JANEWAY: What was that?
KIM: The interferometric pulses they're emitting. They've reflected the energy of the phasers right back to us.
CHAKOTAY: Anything we fire is going to affect us instead of them. What about a photon torpedo?
TUVOK: Since our shield strength is non-existent, I would not recommend it.
PARIS: They're only seven thousand kilometres away and still coming.

Greater than seven thousand kilometers for a phaser strike.

DATA
The warship is three hundred
thousand kilometers from the
Phoenix. It is opening fire.
The Phoenix has taken a direct
hit.

An old standby

RIKER
(a beat, then)
You'll get only one shot.

KARGAN
We will only need one. Arm all
phasers and torpedoes. Prepare
to fire them simultaneously.

RIKER
Then I recommend you do not fire
until you are within forty
thousand kilometers.

KLAG
Why?

RIKER
It will reduce their response
time.

Closing to forty thousand kilometers before firing with the excuse of lowering response time.

O'BRIEN: Commander, long range scanners have picked up two Jem'Hadar warships directly ahead. They're heading this way at warp five.
SISKO: How close will they pass us?
O'BRIEN: One hundred thousand kilometres.
KIRA: That's well within range of their weapons, Commander

One hundred thousand kilometers is will within Dominon's firing range and they were never displayed as having super long range compared to the Federation.

SPOCK: Unknown, Captain. Nothing within sensor range. (a third bolt approaching) Something now, Captain. Very small. Bearing one two three degrees, mark one eight. Range ninety thousand kilometres.
KIRK: That's our target, Mister Sulu. Prepare photon torpedo.
(The third bolt hits)
SCOTT: Shields still holding, sir, but the drain on the engines is reaching the critical point. Ach, we lost warp manoeuvreing power. Switching to impulse.
SULU: Photon torpedoes armed, sir.
KIRK: Has the target changed location, Mister Spock?
SPOCK: No, sir. Holding steady.
KIRK: Ready photon torpedo number two, Mister Sulu.
SULU: Ready, sir.
KIRK: Fire.
SULU: Torpedo away. (a pause, then a flash) Direct hit.

Ninety thousand kilometers and a direct hit against something comparable in size to R2-D2.

CHEKOV: Phasers locked on target. Range closing. Seventy five thousand kilometres.
KIRK: Fire.
(There's a satisfying flare on the viewscreen.)
CHEKOV: Got him!

seventy-five thousand with phasers.

SULU: They've stopped dead, sir. Range ninety thousand kilometres and holding.
UHURA: Mister Spock? I'm receiving a visual signal.
SPOCK: Transfer to main viewer.
UHURA: Aye, sir.
(A strange, garish orange figure with triangular eyes (possibly) appears against a blue and pink tie-die background.)
LOSKENE [on viewscreen]: I am Commander Loskene. You are trespassing in a territorial annex of the Tholian Assembly. You must leave this area immediately.
SPOCK: Spock, in command of the Federation star ship Enterprise. Commander, according to the Federation, this area is free space.
LOSKENE [on viewscreen]: We claim this territory and are prepared to use force, if necessary, to protect our property.
SPOCK: We are not interested in your display of force. The Enterprise is responding to a distress signal from one of our ships and is currently engaged in rescue operations. Do you wish to assist us?
LOSKENE [on viewscreen]: I find no evidence of a disabled ship. My instruments indicate ours are the only two vessels in this area.
SPOCK: The other ship is interspatially trapped. It should reappear in one hour and fifty three minutes. We request you stand by until then.
LOSKENE [on viewscreen]: Very well, Enterprise. In the interest of interstellar amity, we will wait precisely one hour and fifty three minutes. But be correct. We do not tolerate deceit.
.
.

.
MCCOY [OC]: Now you've got to get this ship out of here.
SULU: Mister Spock, we're being fired upon.
(The ship shakes to the impact of the blasts of energy.)
SPOCK: The renowned Tholian punctuality.

Again ninety thousand range.

T'POL: We'll destroy it ourselves.
TUCKER: That thing's buried inside an asteroid.
T'POL: It's not the preferred solution, but it's all we have. Load photonic torpedoes. Mister Mayweather?
TRAVIS: Course set.
T'POL: Take us in.
.
.
.
[Bridge]
TRAVIS: Five thousand kilometres.
T'POL: Lock weapons.

Five thousand range.

As well I challenge your listing the Doomsday Machine, I wish to know what exactly convinces you it was a short ranged incident.

Trek-Firepower:

DAMAR
Personally, I think we'd be better
off launching an orbital assault
on Gowron's Command Center. A
full spread of photon torpedoes
would take care of him, the
Klingon High Command and everyone
else within a few hundred
kilometers.

Odo looks at him with distaste.

ODO
You should ask Dukat for some
shore leave. I think you've been
in space too long.


DAMAR
Why? Because I'm willing to spill
a little Klingon blood to get the
job done?

O'BRIEN
Shelling Ty'Gokor won't get the
job done. You'd be lucky to
launch one torpedo before they
shot you down. And even a dozen
wouldn't penetrate the shielding
around the command center.

Assuming Damar's comment was to recieving third degree burns and punching numbers into Wong's nuke calculator you'd need round about 1000 megatons to reach 200 hundred or so kilometers. Dividing that out by a dozen photon torpedoes, since O'Brien stating that even a dozen wouldn't punch through implying less would have been fired, yields 83.3 megatons per torp.

Trek-Firepower/ground:

First this to set up a sense of scale.

Then this to verify that it was what was removed

Then Worf shooting

and Kaboom!

Nonalien, nonexceptional phaser rifle turns a giant steel disc into shrapnel.

KIRA
This is a standard issue,
Cardassian phase-disruptor rifle.
It has a four-point-seven
megajoule power capacity... three
millisecond recharge and two beam
settings.

Geordi taps a control on the phaser; the beam varies
a little.

GEORDI
Beam width and intensity controls
also responding correctly.

DATA
Energy cell usage remains
constant at one-point-oh-five
megajoules per second.

SEVEN [OC]: I'm at the weapons range. Kovin had taken us there to evaluate various hand held firearms he wished to offer in trade. He attempted to impress us with a demonstration of the weapons destructive capabilities. My role was to provide a more objective analysis.
KOVIN: Terrawatt powered particle beam rifle, four microsecond recharge cycle, ten kilometre range.
PARIS: Definitely not standard Starfleet issue. What do you think?
SEVEN: Seventy two percent fragmentation, twenty eight percent vaporization. Crude, but efficient.
PARIS: It's not as accurate as our compression rifles, but it's a lot easier to handle. I wouldn't mind carrying one of these the next time we run into the Hirogen.
SEVEN: Targeting mechanism could be augmented with a thermal guidance sensor. That would improve accuracy by twenty four percent.
KOVIN: I can do that now. Care to join me? You can make sure the adjustments perform to your specifications.
PARIS: If you don't mind, I'd like to test some of the other firearms.

All self-demostrating I would think.

StarWars-General:

"Look out there, Anakin. A trillion beings on this planet alone — in the galaxy as awhole, uncounted quadrillions — and of them all, I have chosen you, Anakin Skywalker, to be the heir to my power. To all that I am."

Uncounted quadrillions, not tens or hundreds, for the Galaxy as a whole and G-canon Trillion living on Coruscant.

The massive towers of the Republic Executive Building loomed above it all, seeming as if they would reach the very heavens. And that seemed fitting indeed, for inside, even at this early hour, the events and participants took on godlike stature to the trillions of common folk of the Republic

G-canon of there being Trillions only in the Republic shortly before the start of the clonewars.

The industrial sector of Coruscant held perhaps the greatest freight docks in all the galaxy, with a line of bulky transports coming in continually, huge floating cranes ready to meet them and unload the millions of tons of supplies necessary to keep alive the city-planet, which long ago had become too populous to support itself through its own resources. The efficiency of these docks was nothing short of amazing, and yet the place was still tumultuous, and sometimes gridlocked by the sheer number of docking ships and floating cranes.
This was also a place for living passengers, the peasantry of Coruscant, catching cheap rides on freighters outbound, thousands and thousands of people looking to escape the sheer frenzy that had become the world.

Major Coruscant port handls millions of tons of supplies and thousands and thousands of people.

In the Time of Qui-Gon Jim, Ten thousand Jedi Knights in service to the republic carried on the struggle each day of their lives in a hundred thousand different worlds spread across a galaxy so vast…

Hundred thousand worlds of the Old Republic which reinforces the view Tarkin was making a sweep of territory breadth with his million systems remark.

I think this covered the basics of your previous post, please fill free to restate anything you feel I have overlooked or bypassed.

[Praeothmin]

sonofccn, these are all numbers SWST is aware of, as they have been given to him on numerous occasions in previous posts...

[Mike DiCenso]

First of all, the bolts are focused, more on the x axis than y. We see that because of their position in the geometric form one can draw as they're headed for the target. Which means that your calculation is probably quite off. By the look of it, the width between the two vertical pairs of bolts seem to be half of what it is when fired.

Secondly, the effects at the point of impact are very tame. There's clearly not even a kiloton worth of DET delivered on the surface. After a while, the matter at the point of impact begins to slowly crack, shine and then the whole object goes off in a chain reaction.
Not to say that there's no way to ascertain how much matter was truly vaporized at all.

While I'm sure that there is some distortion due to the camera angle being about 20 or so degrees off-center relative to the Defiant's bolts, I think it's safe to say that my numbers are within a reasonable margin of error. But only about 30 percent or so at most given it is a three quarters view. Like I said before, it is quite likely that my numbers are extremely conservative given the effects as well as other parameters such as the unusual spherical shape of the comet nucleus itself, which not only indicates an extremely high density, but also ups the volume of the thing considerably over a more natural shape where the long axis might be 2 km wide, but the short axis only 1 or so km, reducing the total volume.

Also I have yet to see you present any real argument or objection with regards to my calculations. The effects are hardly tame, especially when we consider that the bolts are burrowing down through the comet's material, then releasing their energies inside the dense silithium core. Again, refer to the images I've posted here, the initial, and very significant internal heating and thermal expansion occurs well before even the last of the bolts has reached the comet and the thing explodes only a second or two after, if even that. Combine with the fact that the debris which the shuttle winds up dealing with does not even equal a thousandth of the original mass, and you see that vaporization of the vast majority of the comet's mass is the only answer.

Now, do you have any real quantifiable objections, other than handwaving? I think it's safe to say that this should go down as one of the higher-end Trek firepower examples.
-Mike

[2046]

StarWars-General:

"Look out there, Anakin. A trillion beings on this planet alone — in the galaxy as awhole, uncounted quadrillions — and of them all, I have chosen you, Anakin Skywalker, to be the heir to my power. To all that I am."

Uncounted quadrillions, not tens or hundreds, for the Galaxy as a whole and G-canon Trillion living on Coruscant.

The massive towers of the Republic Executive Building loomed above it all, seeming as if they would reach the very heavens. And that seemed fitting indeed, for inside, even at this early hour, the events and participants took on godlike stature to the trillions of common folk of the Republic

G-canon of there being Trillions only in the Republic shortly before the start of the clonewars.

Thank you. That was the missing element of what I was thinking of while SWST was being weird earlier in the thread. I have that on my Orders of Magnitude page but I've forgotten more than he ever knew.

This, by the way, is yet another proof of a smaller Republic relative to the size of the galaxy as a whole. That is to say, if you have trillions, but you figure the galaxy as a whole has quadrillions, then that puts some limits on things.

To take it down a notch toward more familiar numbers and concepts, let's say you own a portion of the world. You have a population measured in thousands. But you suppose it's possible there might be millions on the planet as a whole. To be sure, you might have 900,000 (and thus almost a million), and by thinking of millions for the whole planet you might only be thinking of a couple of million, and thus the difference might only be a factor of two or so.

From a territory perspective, then, you might be saying the rest of the planet is only as big as what you already own, assuming equal population density. But that's quite an assumption . . . after all, it would imply that the rest of the planet was as advanced as you insofar as being able to feed and house a large population. Seems like you'd know them.

The alternative is that the great unwashed masses outside your borders just happen to be unwashed over a larger area than you possess. For instance, the current population of the United States would equal the entire population of humanity at certain points in our planetary history. Hell, the same could be said for the population of Hong Kong. Ift makes sense, then, that these great unknown regions (to coin a phrase) are way less awesome than you at feeding and housing large numbers of people.

So it goes.

[Mr. Oragahn]

While I'm sure that there is some distortion due to the camera angle being about 20 or so degrees off-center relative to the Defiant's bolts, I think it's safe to say that my numbers are within a reasonable margin of error. But only about 30 percent or so at most given it is a three quarters view.

There's just as much distortion when we're looking at the Defiant. The camera is not right in front of the ship, and we get a good idea of where the camera is located regarding the bolts and the target in the second sequence since the bolts clearly zap close to the viewers' fov.
The tails of the right bolts points to the lower left corner of the video, that after passing just next to "us". There's no doubt that that 3/4 angle when we see the comet is about the same as the 3/4 when we see the Defiant.
So no. The salvo is clearly narrowed on x.

Like I said before, it is quite likely that my numbers are extremely conservative given the effects as well as other parameters such as the unusual spherical shape of the comet nucleus itself, which not only indicates an extremely high density, but also ups the volume of the thing considerably over a more natural shape where the long axis might be 2 km wide, but the short axis only 1 or so km, reducing the total volume.

They could actually be way more conservative.

Also I have yet to see you present any real argument or objection with regards to my calculations.

I already pointed out that the width between the bolts of a salvo you used is narrower than the distance on x between the phaser banks on the Defiant. That would make the quite comet smaller; almost twice as small in fact.
Your size estimation is a good one but no way the real conservative one. That is the point.

The effects are hardly tame, especially when we consider that the bolts are burrowing down through the comet's material, then releasing their energies inside the dense silithium core.

That's the theory? Because I can't remember anyone in the show pointing out that this was what the bolts were supposed to do. Not to say that I don't know where you're pull that burrowing phaser bolt theory from. I don't remember anything like as far as the Defiant's weapons are concerned.

And it doesn't matter. You don't seem to grasp what DET means, despite years now arguing about planetary blasts, chain reaction, Alderaan, Scorpion, so on and so forth.
Look, it's simple. It doesn't really matter how dense the core is. If there were megatons worth of fire poured into the core, it would be immediately visible. Now, if for some reason, the bolts were behaving like bunker busters and burrowing with little thermal expense, and then blowing up inside every time, you'd still get massive blasts coming through the very holes dug by the bolts.
We get none of that. Just some fancy glowing and some rather weird cracking.
That's a chain reaction, and phasers are well known to produce such effects: hitting on and on, either in bursts or with a long continuous beam, and then the target blowing up.

Again, refer to the images I've posted here, the initial, and very significant internal heating and thermal expansion occurs well before even the last of the bolts has reached the comet and the thing explodes only a second or two after, if even that.

Proof that it's funky otherwise the heating producing that cracking would already manifest itself under the form of geysers of ejecta worth of countless megatons.
This does not happen. It can't be simpler, really.

Combine with the fact that the debris which the shuttle winds up dealing with does not even equal a thousandth of the original mass, and you see that vaporization of the vast majority of the comet's mass is the only answer.

It just shows that the final effect blew the comet into plenty of bits, which I don't deny. But that's the final effect.

Now, do you have any real quantifiable objections, other than handwaving? I think it's safe to say that this should go down as one of the higher-end Trek firepower examples.
-Mike

My real quantifiable objections are clearly valid for someone who gets what direct energy transfer means. You can't heat up a rock like some homogeneous oven if you are the one delivering the necessary petawatts to do so, and yet get none of the most expected immediate blast effects and nuclear fire geysers you know. One just doesn't go without the other.
It wouldn't be the first time that phasers turn out to be able to heat up some object in a short timeframe, yet without damaging it at the very point of impact (I'm thinking of Sulu's trick on a rock in TOS for example).

[sonofccn]

sonofccn, these are all numbers SWST is aware of, as they have been given to him on numerous occasions in previous posts...

Oh I have no doubt of that, I stole some episode names from a list you compiled for him, but I still felt it was important to make my own attempt. You can't have all the fun mentally thrashing him now can you? :)

Besides Mike expressed interest in the quadrillion quote so it was only fitting I provide it. ;)

[StarWarsStarTrek]

sonofccn, these are all numbers SWST is aware of, as they have been given to him on numerous occasions in previous posts...

I would invite you to present evidence of this. I would also invite you to refudiate the various justifications I have presented for not being able to rebute every last post directed at me, the latest being that my desktop computer's harddrive just died.

Now Mike, please feel free to tell me which of the 24 new posts directed at me I should refute. Shall I take another two hours to respond to each and every of them? But they're mainly redundant. But if one of these posts contains anything unique or special from another, I will get jumped for "ignoring evidence" and "dishonesty".

[StarWarsStarTrek]

Actually I was waiting to clear this issue.
<snip>

(all of my work is deleted as soon as I press "back"????)

Dude, all of your examples are dialogue based (inferior to visuals via OP stipulations) and one vs one skirmishes. Since you have still failed to provide evidence that this long ranged combat can be used in large scale battles that overrides the mountains upon mountains of examples of 10 kilomter combat ranges in said pitched battles and even in many smaller ones, we can conclude that Trek will only occastionally utilize their uber-range-capabilities in small pitched battles, a proper conciliation between your examples and mine.

Assuming Damar's comment was to recieving third degree burns and punching numbers into Wong's nuke calculator you'd need round about 1000 megatons to reach 200 hundred or so kilometers. Dividing that out by a dozen photon torpedoes, since O'Brien stating that even a dozen wouldn't punch through implying less would have been fired, yields 83.3 megatons per torp.

Wrong. You'll notice that fireball radius does not scale linearly for nukes. 1000 megatons for a single missile to do that damage =/= 1000 total megatons from several smaller missiles.

Nonalien, nonexceptional phaser rifle turns a giant steel disc into shrapnel.

Happens repeatedly in Star Wars, not special.

More later.

[sonofccn]

Dude, all of your examples are dialogue based (inferior to visuals via OP stipulations) and one vs one skirmishes.

And if there is visual contridiction in the specific example you may invoke that ruling. But all of my examples are canon.

Since you have still failed to provide evidence that this long ranged combat can be used in large scale battles that overrides the mountains upon mountains of examples of 10 kilomter combat ranges in said pitched battles and even in many smaller ones, we can conclude that Trek will only occastionally utilize their uber-range-capabilities in small pitched battles, a proper conciliation between your examples and mine.

Sigh. You previously argued this:

And what makes you so certain that the Federation fleet will use higher end ranges instead of lower ones? Because you want them too? Because you say so? We have two contradicting piles of evidence, the lower end one being far more numerous, yet you wish to disregard the evidence that does not support your argument without cause.

And I matched you example for example and challenged one.

As to the matter as a whole you have failed to prove a contridiction and indeed one of my examples explains a reasoning for closing with the enemy vessel in order to reduce reaction time. Therefore should they have reason to fire at an enemy vessel at tens of thousands of kilometers and can not easily close the distance as they have demostrated a prefrence for they will shoot it as each of my examples shows.

Wrong. You'll notice that fireball radius does not scale linearly for nukes. 1000 megatons for a single missile to do that damage =/= 1000 total megatons from several smaller missiles.

And Damar is firing them all in a solitary salvo against a single point not spreading them around equally to try and maximize damage potentional. Which brings us back to a solitary, singular big blast which must reach out hundreds of kilometers.

Happens repeatedly in Star Wars, not special.

I 'm eagerly awaiting this. The best I'm aware of would be Han's blaster blowing a hole in the dirt landing pit at Mos eisley.