Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

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Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Jan 18, 2018 10:58 pm

Spoiler alert as always for those who aren't caught up on the latest episode "The Wolf Inside".

















You have been warned. I haven't had a chance yet to go over some of the tech details of the newest Star Trek series, but already it has been showing us that the canonically mentioned, but only extremely rarely seen orbital bombardment by conventional capital ships with the intention to wreak total destruction on the surface of a planet is now finally realized again for the first since DS9's "The Die is Cast" with state of the art CGI effects. The results are truly awesome to behold as seen here in this review video at 9:45 to 10:02.

Remember how certain Warsies used to say that the TDiC bombardment wasn't direct energy because we didn't see any ejecta or cracked planetary crust? Well, look closely as the Discovery FX have more than added in such details along with shockwaves as the torpedoes hit their marks. If DS9 ever gets the HD treatment that TOS and TNG have, I hope this is what they use as the guide for updating TDiC's special effects.
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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Jan 18, 2018 11:15 pm

Here's a video clip of the scene that provides better context. Given that we are treated to an external view of the torpedoes flying to their target, there's no way anyone can wiggle out of this by claiming it to be some kind of spoofing of sensors as has previously been claimed about the TDiC bombardment.
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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Praeothmin » Fri Jan 19, 2018 1:42 am

Definitely more powerful than the bombardment in TLJ...

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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Jan 19, 2018 5:04 am

And a billion trillion times more powerful than the Star Wars: Rebels "Zero Hour" bombardment by an entire fleet of Star Destroyers. :)
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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Sothis » Fri Jan 19, 2018 5:26 pm

So, in the latest episode of Discovery, this happened:

What caused this rather bleak scene of destruction? A single Terran Empire ship. Since ships from the mirror universe are meant to, err, mirror their main counterparts, it's therefore not unreasonable to assert that Federation ships of the era (ten years prior to the events of TOS) sport similar firepower. The exact mechanism here was a dozen or so photon torpedoes - no chain reactions or technobabble in sight, just the raw firepower from a single ship.
The planet's surface is visibly cracked and scorched, with huge ejecta and massive fireballs. We're looking at a significant portion of said surface, which now resembles what we might expect the earth to look like if we were hit by a large asteroid. This is thousands of gigatons of destructive power.
How does this affect anything you might ask? Well, for those of us who participated in Star Trek vs Star Wars circles, this opens up a new angle. For me, I have always held that the evidence had previously indicated a comfortable victory for the Empire from Star Wars, over the Federation from Star Trek. I might still hold to that view, in terms of the Empire's industrial capacity, sheer numbers and FTL advantage, but now it appears (even more so when we look at the firepower of the dreadnought from The Last Jedi) that what was once a devastating victory is now a bitter and bloody war of attrition.
There are some caveats. The first question, I hear you ask, is that the Terran Empire is not the Federation. The capabilities of their ships might be different to their Federation counterparts. True, but then again, it's been seen through various episodes of the franchise that the two universes are remarkably similar. There is no reason to assume the Terran Empire massively outperforms the Federation in terms of combat.
Next up, is the question of philosophy. The Terran Empire is a xenophobic entity, bent on subjegating and destroying alien species. They are a tyrannical regime, built on power and dominance. Might they have developed weapons that the Federation would never contemplate making? Perhaps, but then, this doesn't preclude the Federation from making them, if they were truly compelled to.
What about the Dominion War? Yes, this was a desperate time for the Federation, but bear in mind that we never saw orbital bombardments. The only time we caught the aftermath of one was when the Breen attacked Starfleet HQ, which at the time showed very poor levels of firepower, from a power that was meant to rival the Federation. I have in the past held up this as an example (one of several) of poor firepower from the Federation and their equivalents. Might it be worth revisiting now, in the context of what we saw on Discovery?
This isn't the only example that might need reconsidering. There is an episode of Deep Space Nine, The Die is Cast, which is used by both sides of the Trek vs Wars debate as either tremendous firepower or chain reactions, depending upon your interpretation. The answer might not be as simple as 'choose a side'.
Consider for a moment that the Romulans and Cardassians (who in the episode attack the Founder home world, in a bid to wipe them out) were on a clandestine mission that, certainly in the case of the Cardassians, wasn't sanctioned by their government, so it's possible they didn't have access to their full arsenal. It might be that they deliberately used some form of chain reaction effect, as, for whatever reason, they felt this was a better option than raw firepower.
Alternatively, what we saw on Discovery might have been torpedoes specifically modified to strike secure ground targets, or to cause extinction level events. Again, non-standard weapons, but ones that are certainly available. It could be that these are difficult to produce, or simply that the Federation is well aware they have the capacity to make them, only they consider it distasteful to produce such destructive weapons. Maybe these weapons would one-shot kill other Federation ships or even entire fleets. Bottom line, we don't know. The fact remains, Discovery has given us one of the clearest, unambigious examples of firepower we could have asked for.


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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Jan 19, 2018 7:42 pm

We already know that the Federation can and does produce similar capabilities for its starships' weapons as we have many mentions of this from all the way back to TOS as well as DS9 and even ENT that such a thing is possible. I shouldn't even have to remind you, Sothis, about any of this as it has all been been posted here and elsewhere about things, like General Order 24, which can be carried out by a single starship, and these are starships that are a minuscule fraction of their Star Wars counterparts' sizes in most cases but can still carry out a level of destruction that far surpasses them or at least can equal the very biggest and best of them.
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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Sothis » Fri Jan 19, 2018 8:51 pm

Mike DiCenso wrote:
Fri Jan 19, 2018 7:42 pm
We already know that the Federation can and does produce similar capabilities for its starships' weapons as we have many mentions of this from all the way back to TOS as well as DS9 and even ENT that such a thing is possible. I shouldn't even have to remind you, Sothis, about any of this as it has all been been posted here and elsewhere about things, like General Order 24, which can be carried out by a single starship, and these are starships that are a minuscule fraction of their Star Wars counterparts' sizes in most cases but can still carry out a level of destruction that far surpasses them or at least can equal the very biggest and best of them.
-Mike
*Shrug* I’ve had a different interpretation of the evidence up until now. There’s been plenty to suggest lower end estimates as well, however a lot of the evidence has always been ambiguous to say the least. This latest Discovery episode is very clear cut. It, for me, forces a re-evaluation of a few things.

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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:50 am

Well, let me talk about the other side of the coin:

VFX are really not precise. The documentarian approach is deeply flawed, and the evidence is almost always inconsistent, especially when it comes to VFX. Visual effects are, firstly, subject to large errors in analysis (this planet is not actually Earth, just vaguely Earthlike); and secondly, often inconsistent - either being exaggerated for dramatic effect, or simply because it's hard for fiction to be consistent, or just that VFX are designed for emotional impact rather than physical accuracy.

It's silly to rely on comic book illustrations of orbital bombardment to calculate yield while ignoring other largely inconsistent events, even if the comic books were considered equally authoritative as the movies; similarly, it would be silly to hang everything on the VFX of one particular episode.

What do we have? Well, we have a perspective not terribly dissimilar to that from the modern-day ISS (relatively close orbit hundreds of miles away from the surface). Curvature is a major factor; this is not approximating the geometry of a disk, as in "Skin of Evil," and the explosions are relatively near-field. Eyeballing it, I would suggest these are not actually larger than the "Skin of Evil" effect; they are just much more detailed. They are lower-yield than they might look at first; although they are certainly an unambiguously high example of firepower.

It's a lot less ambiguous than past examples (because the VFX are a lot more realistic than older VFX) but I would be hesitant to say that photon torpedoes should be considered to carry a yield much more than what they should given the heavily-reinforced datum that they are antimatter warhead missiles about the size of a coffin.

Sure, a documentarian can't consistently deny the capability to absolutely blow the stuffing out of things - but the documentarian approach was always flawed to start with.

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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Trinoya » Sat Jan 20, 2018 7:12 am

Sadly I do not have access to all the material, just the video clips.

That said, can someone confirm for me which ship conducts the bombardment?

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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by 359 » Sat Jan 20, 2018 7:05 pm

The volley came from an off-screen Terran starship from the mirror universe, presumably the emperor's personal ship. However it is also stated that the Shenzhou is capable of similarly dispatching the intended target.


The main tripping points I find with this example are that, first, federation photon torpedoes have been consistently shown to be blue in DIS. Granted this is not the Federation, but we shall see. Second, that when Burnham is called to the bridge they describe a "massive power signature in orbit," however this is quickly ascribed to a "vessel is targeting Harlak."

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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by 2046 » Sun Jan 21, 2018 3:12 am

That's a nice bombardment with delightful crust-cracking, but the weapon glows are huge-mongous. Assuming an Earth-size planet and making guesses at orbital altitude based on available curvature, the torpedoes or missiles impact while the glows are at the size of a town.

Maybe if they're really bright and the atmosphere was hazy we could say those are normal-ish torpedoes, or maybe some sort of multi-warhead, but eyeballing it I'm not even sure the flight time makes sense insofar as space to ground.

So close, though.

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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Darth Spock » Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:43 am

When I first saw this my initial reaction was that the F/X crews had gone to the opposite extreme of the early TNG "gigawatts are scary" angle and were going to start in on a "gigatons are common" approach.
But I think JMS really hit the nail on the head in his comment above. This is a nice example to help dispel some of the "Star Trek weapons are pathetically weak" perceptions, but I agree that this display isn't as huge as it first appears.
When I actually tried to scale this thing, using the curvature of the horizon, locations of the blasts relative to cloud cover, times and distances of blast effects etc., I ended up with a lot of muddled results that tended to drag the figures down more than bolster them.
As large as the explosions seem, this example still actually suffers from a lot of the same criticisms of the TDiC bombardment. The lack of mushroom clouds is bothersome for starters, but typical in sci-fi. While the level of destruction initially appears ridiculously huge compared to the curvature of the horizon, it's the time factors that really hurt this example, everything reaches its apex too soon.
Ejecta is present, but seems too move too fast for mere seconds then visibly slows far too rapidly. Apparent shock waves move too quickly for the distances they appear to cover, and fizzle too soon as well. Fireball effects don't last long enough either. Only about 20 seconds after the detonations when the emperor opens a channel, there appears to be nothing left in the background but ordinary conflagrations on the planet's surface, with no lingering evidence of massive explosions having taken place. I am also unsure that the jagged glowing lines can reliably be identified as cracks in the crust, and may only be incendiary effects on the landscape caused by thermal radiation.

The noted the low orbit and angle of view likely affects the actual area of destruction as well. What initially struck me as an area equaling a good chunk of the continental U.S.A. or most of the European Union shrinks to about the size the state of Texas or the nation of France compared to a view from low orbit. I wouldn't expect a huge amount of distortion in the image but it is hard to pin the scale down exactly, you can see the camera isn't maintaining a single focus by the jumps in the following gif. Comparison to a view of Florida from the ISS:
Image

Accepting that no figure is going realistically match what was seen on screen in every respect, I tried to match as many of the details against the expected results from online nuclear calculators and the apparent distances involved. I found that as I plugged in numbers higher than about 300 megatons (and conversely, when going lower than about 3 MT) the results progressively generated far more inconsistencies than they seemed to solve.
359 wrote:
Sat Jan 20, 2018 7:05 pm
The main tripping points I find with this example are that, first, federation photon torpedoes have been consistently shown to be blue in DIS. Granted this is not the Federation, but we shall see. Second, that when Burnham is called to the bridge they describe a "massive power signature in orbit," however this is quickly ascribed to a "vessel is targeting Harlak."
2046 wrote:
Sun Jan 21, 2018 3:12 am
That's a nice bombardment with delightful crust-cracking, but the weapon glows are huge-mongous. Assuming an Earth-size planet and making guesses at orbital altitude based on available curvature, the torpedoes or missiles impact while the glows are at the size of a town.

Maybe if they're really bright and the atmosphere was hazy we could say those are normal-ish torpedoes, or maybe some sort of multi-warhead, but eyeballing it I'm not even sure the flight time makes sense insofar as space to ground.
Depending on the altitude of the camera, the flight time doesn't seem that odd, and shield glow size can very considerably depending on circumstances. Aside from possibly being specialized ordinance though, I have wondered if 'Trek combatants might not be able to "double load" their warheads during bombardments. Seeing as there is no shortage of matter to interact with compared to use in the vacuum of space, why worry about an even mix? Just fill the whole assembly with antimatter then cut the containment field when it's time to blow.
One other problem is that Discovery has already introduced contradictory, low end firepower within its own canon. Namely a Klingon BoP assault on a Federation colony that is a near carbon copy of a low ball example from DS9's "Once More unto the Breach" episode.


Finally, there appears to be some interesting background chatter following the bombardment. Has any eagle-eared listener been able to pick out what all is being said? This is what I can make out so far:

Man 1: Local shock waves imminent.

Woman 1: (? Bearing ?) for impact.

Man 2: ??????????? (? power is fluctuating ?) ???????????

Man 1: All decks brace for impact.

Woman 1: Estimated yield ?????? ?????? and attempting to compensate for electro magnetic ( ? interference ?).

Man 1: Impulse drive is showing intermittent shorts.

Man 2: ??????????

And then we go to the transmission from the emperor.

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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Khas » Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:31 am

Jedi Master Spock wrote:
Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:50 am
It's a lot less ambiguous than past examples (because the VFX are a lot more realistic than older VFX) but I would be hesitant to say that photon torpedoes should be considered to carry a yield much more than what they should given the heavily-reinforced datum that they are antimatter warhead missiles about the size of a coffin.
You know, I've been thinking about how photon torpedoes can have such high-yields despite being so small. And then I realized something that I hadn't thought of before - or in fact, I'd even heard before.

What if the high-yield photon torpedoes use electron-degenerate deuterium and positron-degenerate anti-deuterium, basically they store their stuff at white dwarf densities. You wouldn't need much space to hold a good amount at that density - a matchbox worth of the stuff has the mass of an elephant. I'd imagine these torpedoes would also have mass-lightening tech in them.

Sure, this has never been mentioned in the show, but it would explain quite a bit.

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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by Khas » Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:37 am

Darth Spock wrote:
Tue Jan 23, 2018 1:43 am
Depending on the altitude of the camera, the flight time doesn't seem that odd, and shield glow size can very considerably depending on circumstances. Aside from possibly being specialized ordinance though, I have wondered if 'Trek combatants might not be able to "double load" their warheads during bombardments. Seeing as there is no shortage of matter to interact with compared to use in the vacuum of space, why worry about an even mix? Just fill the whole assembly with antimatter then cut the containment field when it's time to blow.
One other problem is that Discovery has already introduced contradictory, low end firepower within its own canon. Namely a Klingon BoP assault on a Federation colony that is a near carbon copy of a low ball example from DS9's "Once More unto the Breach" episode.
You know, the TOS episode "A Piece of the Action" showed that starship phaser emitters can be set on "stun" if they need to be, so it's possible that the Bird-of-Prey deliberately lowered its disruptors' yields for the colony attack, simply because higher power wasn't needed.

Or, if they used torpedoes, we know from ENT that torpedoes can also have their yields dialed. Photonic torpedoes, could, at their lowest yield, blow the comm antenna off a shuttlepod without damaging the rest of it, while at their highest yield, would put a "three-kilometer wide crater in an asteroid".

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Re: Discovery Shows TDiC-Level Planetary Bombardment

Post by 2046 » Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:43 am

Epic post, Darth Spock!

On rewatch of the clip, the glow seems to flare a bit at the end of the run on at least some of the impactors, suggesting interaction with atmosphere. But, these are still weapons with large glow by default. I'd call it half an Ocala, by eyeball, and that place has city limits like six miles wide.

Glows vary, sure, but that's massive.

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