More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

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Mike DiCenso
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More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Apr 26, 2019 3:23 am

Discovery bombards the facility on Essof IV in "Perpetual Infinity" with fairly impressive results, though not quite as impressive as the one carried out by the ISS Charon against rebels on Halak.
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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by Khas » Fri Apr 26, 2019 5:20 am

I just compared that scene to the orbital bombardment in The Last Jedi.

The moment when a handful of bog-standard photon torpedoes are hundreds, if not thousands of times more powerful than the First Order Dreadnought's multi-kilometer siege cannons is... admittedly... not one I would have expected to see when I first joined this board.

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by 359 » Fri Apr 26, 2019 8:28 am

To me it looks fairly similar to the single torpedo detonation on Vagra II in TNG: "Skin of Evil," except with newer graphics.

Image

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by Mike DiCenso » Fri Apr 26, 2019 11:56 pm

And the Defiant's twin atmospheric quantum torpedo detonations in "For the Uniform":

Image

As I recall, it was calculated these were in the 500-1000 megaton range each, assuming surface detonations (they weren't, they were 50 km up to spread the trilithium poison).
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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by Mike DiCenso » Sat Apr 27, 2019 12:08 am

Khas wrote:
Fri Apr 26, 2019 5:20 am
I just compared that scene to the orbital bombardment in The Last Jedi.

The moment when a handful of bog-standard photon torpedoes are hundreds, if not thousands of times more powerful than the First Order Dreadnought's multi-kilometer siege cannons is... admittedly... not one I would have expected to see when I first joined this board.
Just bear a few things in mind.

- Discovery, despite her size, has less range and firepower than the Constitution-class heavy cruiser Enterprise as shown in the "Such Sweet Sorrow" season finale two-parter.

- According the Disney sanctioned ICS material, the First Order ships have increased firepower due to use of the magical kyber crystals in their star destroyers' turbolasers.

And unlike previous Trek series, there is no bloody getting around what we are seeing here due to FX limitations. In fact, this scene mirrors Dumar's statement in "Apocalypse RIsing" about using the commandeered Bird of Prey's torpedoes to wipe out Ty'Gokor and everything for hundreds of kilometers around it. Well, now we know he wasn't spouting any BS. On top of that we now know just how powerful that Klingon base's shields would be at bare minimum since O'Brien retorts back to him that the shields could handle such a bombardment and then blast them right out the sky.
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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by Darth Spock » Sat Apr 27, 2019 3:39 pm

Impressive. The problem with those prior examples were problems with the visuals, as noted. The effects just weren't consistent with what such yields should produce. This one appears to have a nice big lingering fireball, while it's still not a perfect visual of what I'd expect, it's pretty solid. This might be the evidence that brings me to the high yield 'Trek camp. Of course I remember the last time I thought something like this it turned out to be the Harlak goose chase. So this time I figured I'd jump straight to the acid test and see if there's a nerf-it MacGuffin lying around down there. Aaaaaaaand there it is. They're using the base to power a deuterium reactor pumping out twelve warp cores worth of power, and then they blow it up.
Translation: Evidence supports the idea that the place was quite possibly the equivalent of a jumbo Ivy Mike facility just waiting for a half dozen moderate yield torpedoes to set it off.

Don't misunderstand, it's not that I have a hate hard-on for Star Trek, it's just that the longer I look at the whole thing, the more lower yields seem to make the most sense. Real life in WW2 demonstrates it perfectly, it's far easier to explain a few ultra high yield weapons as unusual, highly specialized ordinance amid countless weaker examples, than to try to figure out why comparatively insignificant weapons are used effectively while assuming yields thousands of times higher are the norm. At this point in 'Treks history, I think it's still a tad easier to come up with rational explanations for unusual high end examples than to try and explain away the weaker ones.

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by Praeothmin » Thu May 02, 2019 8:25 pm

Basically, you are doing what 2046 (Darkstar, G2K) did for the AT-AT on hoth scene:
Realising they are shooting at a massive power source with fuel and that such power sources usually explode very powerfully, and that the vessel (or Walker's) weapons are not necessarily responsible for the entire pyrotechnic...

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by 2046 » Fri May 03, 2019 2:30 am

Well, I mean, secondary explosions *are* a thing. It may be wrong when Hollywood treats every car gas tank like it will go full insta-BLEVE when shot, but these are slightly more energetic doodads we're talking about.

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by WhiteLion » Tue Aug 27, 2019 3:02 am

In my opinion we cannot rely on the explosion dimension seen on the screen, it would be different instead if we could judge the destructive power following the direct destruction of a specific target, because it would be an irrefutable datum, but in my opinion based only on the size of the explosion from space it is a bit superficial. Also because those who create these series do not give much weight to realism. Certainly having a video test of the size of the explosion is certainly an important fact but in my opinion not conclusive.

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by 2046 » Wed Aug 28, 2019 3:17 pm

That, and folks generally seem to treat the atmosphere as optically clear for these purposes, which can be true as in the case of these flamey fireball things sci-fi loves . . . but a big bright flash as seen through an entire atmosphere is not necessarily the size it appears to be.

Irrefutable? No, but it is a figure that's superior to no data at all.

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by WhiteLion » Thu Aug 29, 2019 10:35 pm

surely it is better than having no data, but we cannot determine its power precisely. For example, in Star Trek there is a Borg weapon currently in the possession of the federation which, in my opinion, makes most of the weapons of almost all the other series useless. We see it in Voyager, in the battle in which Borg and Janeway cooperate, 7D9 gives Janeway the specifications for the Multiphasic Neutronic Mine that is capable of destroying the entire star system. Janeway then opts for the solution we all know.
In this case, for example, we have a clear statement of the power of the weapon that leaves no doubt.

Also in my opinion the true strength of the Federation is the replicators, practically every ship is able to synthesize almost anything, if they wanted they could create most of the weapons of which they have the specifications.

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by 359 » Fri Aug 30, 2019 1:38 am

Indeed, the explosion visuals should not be literally interpreted into yields based on appearance. But what they do offer is a qualitative scale of destruction from "Ruins a teacup" to "Ruins a continent."

Given this appears to be seen from a higher orbit than the bombardment in DIS: "The Wolf Inside" (both from horizon curvature and relative weather pattern sizes) I'd guess this amounts to a scale between "Ruins a large city" to "Ruins a small country." If I were somewhere the size of Ireland or Switzerland and was told this bombardment would happen in my country I would not bet on my survival.

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by WhiteLion » Fri Aug 30, 2019 9:45 pm

you are absolutely right, in the past the suluris were very undervalued (about 64 megatons), surely these images offer an extra figure to give us an idea of the power of the weapon. Indeed we can say that the flash of the explosion denotes a very large size, the size of a small country. I don't feel able to affirm the power in megatons or gigatons, but surely we can approximate an estimate with the online calculator that is used to estimate the power of a nuke based on secondary effects, such as the size of the fireball and the flash beam generated by the explosion.

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Re: More Discovery Photon Torpedo Firepower On Display

Post by Praeothmin » Thu Sep 12, 2019 1:05 pm

359 wrote:
Fri Aug 30, 2019 1:38 am
If I were somewhere the size of Ireland or Switzerland and was told this bombardment would happen in my country I would not bet on my survival.
Uh, just tell them if they destroy you they no longer have the world's best chocolate, you Swiss neutral man, you...

They will forego the bombardment and will simply invade, and then you can stop them by immersing their path in that wonderful Swiss fondue...

And then, well, you've just won... :)

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Why did Section 31 not send ship destroy Kligion homeworld.

Post by GeorgeAgome » Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:03 pm

Considering Section 31's secretive and ruthless nature, why did they not utilize their resources to destroy the Kligion homeworld, especially when they have shown a willingness to take extreme measures in the past? Is there a hidden agenda or strategic reasoning behind their decision?

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