Rise: have we underestimated torpedoes?

[Moff Tarquin]

The calculations were done in the Phaser/Warp Power thread. Click on the link here, if you want to go right to them.
-Mike

Thanks!

[Darth Spock]

Hello Moff Tarquin, that is some very interesting data you've put together, and it does have a goodly amount of company for higher yield estimates. I'm sorry to be "that guy" but, while it does make for some cool big numbers, it still doesn't jive with some other examples in Trek, and in addition to the question of how well those findings would translate up to such a large scale, blowing apart a jumbo asteroid by nailing it with a kinetic impactor seems like doing things the hard way (i.e. the big numbers way) when you have a high yield warhead at your disposal. Don't forget, explosives are even more effective when buried as opposed to detonated at the surface, and recall from TNG S2E15: Pen Pals, that photon torpedoes can burrow into unshielded matter, optimizing its destructive potential here.

Beyond my doubts as to such a massive yield actually being necessary to accomplish what we saw, there are other examples in the Trek universe that that put considerable doubt on individual torpedoes packing such punch. The most notable example being in VOY S2E17: Dreadnought, where the Cardassian craft was specifically stated as having a 2000 kg total M/AM warhead. A 100 meter long super weapon, carrying its own compliment of quantum torpedoes while sporting a forty-sum gigaton yield puts a pretty hard limit on what I would expect from individual torpedoes. I really can't see anything above a gigaton making any sense at all in this context. In addition, while some statements regarding yields are quite dubious, likely to be taken as hyperbole, Tuvok's statement regarding the energy levels involved here actually make some sense, a blast of that size would likely obliterate either of Mar's (admittedly very) small moons.

As for the asteroid in question, without even being conservative, assuming a 300 meter diameter iron sphere, (roughly the same volume as 2046's overall estimate as to the asteroids size) 200 megatons is nearly enough energy to theoretically (assuming optimal energy transfer) vaporize the whole thing, or to melt it six times over. As for more realistic expectations, document page 5 (pdf pg 8) of this study of underground nuclear detonations gives a pretty strong indication of a sufficiently large radius of destruction such that I imagine a couple hundred megatons should do the trick. Of course, a lump of nickel and iron would undoubtedly be a tougher nut to crack than the terrestrial rock and soil in those findings, and I am also uncertain how well those guidelines hold up at such high yields. It's also possible that large chunks could be thrown off and avoid destruction. Of course, this is exactly what happened anyway, evidently do to inconstancies in the asteroid, though this would make sense. I think the information on document page 84 (pdf pg 94) of this study is relevant in that regard.

At any rate, I doubt such high yields are really necessary to achieve what was expected in the Rise episode, though it does make a nice addition to the higher end figures pointed out at the first OP.

Oh, to add to 359's recommendation regarding subscripts, most people I think are familiar with using the carrot for superscript, but to help differentiate the subscripts, you can adjust font size here. Making those characters smaller could help. Example: Ei = ((Mt / Ml)^(1/B)) * 10^(a/B)

[Moff Tarquin]

Hello Moff Tarquin, that is some very interesting data you've put together, and it does have a goodly amount of company for higher yield estimates. I'm sorry to be "that guy"

Actually, if I'm going to keep up my pretensions of scientific rigor, I'm going to need a fairly steady supply of "those guys." So I kind of need you to be "that guy" if I'm going to keep up my reputation. So thanks!

in addition to the question of how well those findings would translate up to such a large scale, blowing apart a jumbo asteroid by nailing it with a kinetic impactor seems like doing things the hard way (i.e. the big numbers way) when you have a high yield warhead at your disposal. Don't forget, explosives are even more effective when buried as opposed to detonated at the surface, and recall from TNG S2E15: Pen Pals, that photon torpedoes can burrow into unshielded matter, optimizing its destructive potential here.

While I agree that the issue of translating these findings to such a large scale is a substantial one, I would disagree that it's that much harder to blow something up with an explosive device than it is to blow it up with a kinetic impactor. When you're dealing with time scales in the microseconds, there's no time for thermalization. That means that any heat produced by an explosive device won't penetrate particularly deeply, it'll all get absorbed by this one microscopically thin layer on the surface. That layer will then vaporize and expand extremely rapidly. It is the impact of this expanding layer upon the rest of the asteroid that results in any destructive effects. An impactor would probably be more efficient than a high-yield explosive detonated on the surface, because in the latter case, you get an ablative layer that can mostly just "bounce off" of the rest of the asteroid, whereas in the former case you have an impactor that will basically go as deep into the target as it is long (google "Newton's penetration formula" for the details on why it wouldn't go any deeper) and do work on the target the entire time. A buried charge is more effective than a surface charge for two reasons: 1) all of the energy of the explosion goes into forming the ablative layer, and 2) the ablative layer has nowhere to bounce off to. So a buried charge is going to be about as effective as an impactor, or maybe a little bit more effective. In any case, the basic mechanism of damage is the same: impact, physical work, and shock waves.

Now, earlier in this thread, it was mentioned that a sufficiently strong shock wave would produce heat throughout the body of the asteroid, possibly enough to vaporize it completely even without thermalization. If you can find any information about that, I would be very interested. Needless to say, such a phenomenon could easily reduce the figure I got by orders of magnitude. Moreover, since a yield substantially greater than 8.5 teratons would have caused significant problems on the ground, we may take that figure as a strict upper limit for the yield of the Rise torpedo.

Beyond my doubts as to such a massive yield actually being necessary to accomplish what we saw, there are other examples in the Trek universe that that put considerable doubt on individual torpedoes packing such punch. The most notable example being in VOY S2E17: Dreadnought, where the Cardassian craft was specifically stated as having a 2000 kg total M/AM warhead. A 100 meter long super weapon, carrying its own compliment of quantum torpedoes while sporting a forty-sum gigaton yield puts a pretty hard limit on what I would expect from individual torpedoes. I really can't see anything above a gigaton making any sense at all in this context. In addition, while some statements regarding yields are quite dubious, likely to be taken as hyperbole, Tuvok's statement regarding the energy levels involved here actually make some sense, a blast of that size would likely obliterate either of Mar's (admittedly very) small moons.

Actually, I would say that consistency with the rest of the Trek universe is one of the strongest reasons not to completely throw out this particular calculation. If it wasn't for that particular fact, I would have completely thrown out these numbers. As I mentioned before, episodes like Booby Trap, The Masterpiece Society, Broken Link, The Die is Cast, and Think Tank all point to ludicrously high performance capabilities on the part of Trek ships. Not only that, but by my count - and I have by no means undertaken a particularly thorough investigation - there are at least five TOS episodes that indicate that the Enterprise-1701 was capable of sterilizing a planet - and that's not counting the Kirk-bombs in Obsession and The Immunity Syndrome.

Incidentally, I think that the issue with the Dreadnought can be resolved quite easily if we assume that both the Federation and the Cardassian Union make use of TOS-grade antimatter - as if we would be able to explain any of Trek's high showings without the stuff. Then, all we need to do is assume that most torpedoes are never armed with more than a few grams of the stuff.

As for the contradiction between TOS-grade antimatter and the stuff we call antimatter in real life, we can actually resolve that with canon data. In the TOS episode "The Doomsday Machine," the eponymous Doomsday Machine emits an energy-dampening field that, in addition to causing substantial amounts of subspace interference, is capable of "deactivating" the antimatter fuel aboard the Constellation. If antimatter can be "deactivated," and such "deactivation" renders it unsuitable for use in the starship's reactor, then it stands to reason that the starship's reactor has been optimized to run on "activated" antimatter.

My guess would be that Star Trek vessels and weapons utilize antimatter that has been somehow infused with subspace energy, such that upon annihilation, it releases many orders of magnitude more energy than it ought to be able to according to modern science. Such a hypothesis allows Trek ships to accomplish the things we've seen them accomplish without having to carry ludicrous amounts of fuel.

In short, I feel that consistency with the rest of the canon is one of the strong points of my position. It is a common tactic to reject such high showings as "outliers," but there are enough of them that they seem to be less like outliers and more like expected high-end performances. I will be the first to admit that the bulk of what we see pegs torpedoes as ~500 megatons and capital ship energy weapons at ~50,000 TW. But I will also be the first to insist that a large number of canon facts indicate that, when pushed, Trek ship performances some six orders of magnitude higher are to be expected.

As for the asteroid in question, without even being conservative, assuming a 300 meter diameter iron sphere, (roughly the same volume as 2046's overall estimate as to the asteroids size) 200 megatons is nearly enough energy to theoretically (assuming optimal energy transfer) vaporize the whole thing, or to melt it six times over.

The issue is that optimal energy transfer is more or less impossible. The closest we could come to complete vaporization of an asteroid via a single explosive device would be the aforementioned "superheated by shock wave" method. What we don't know is how much energy it takes to cause such a superheating shock wave. We know that it is greater than or equal to the thermodynamic heat of vaporization, but we don't know by how much. In short, 200 megatons is, at best, a lower limit on the energy a torpedo can release. At worst, relying on thermodynamic considerations alone could send us barking up the wrong tree. Questions of materials science need to be brought to bear.

As for more realistic expectations, document page 5 (pdf pg 8) of this study of underground nuclear detonations gives a pretty strong indication of a sufficiently large radius of destruction such that I imagine a couple hundred megatons should do the trick.

Don't sell your point short. According to page 5, the radius of vaporized rock would be somewhere between 4 and 12 m/(kt^(1/3)). So, if we apply that scaling to the Rise asteroid, modeling it as a sphere with a radius of 150 m, we get a value between 2 and 53 megatons of yield. But, as you mention, there are some caveats:

Of course, a lump of nickel and iron would undoubtedly be a tougher nut to crack than the terrestrial rock and soil in those findings, and I am also uncertain how well those guidelines hold up at such high yields. It's also possible that large chunks could be thrown off and avoid destruction.

I would add that an underground explosion has "nowhere to go," whereas an explosion inside of an asteroid can relieve pressure the moment any expanding gasses reach the surface. That alone could easily raise the required yield by an order of magnitude or two.

Incidentally, both you and Darkstar have understated the strength of your criticisms. While I can understand that you might be concerned about issues of civility, and don't want to seem dismissive of anything anyone you disagree with has written, this particular case is different. My first reaction when I ran these numbers was "that can't be right..." My position about high yields in Star Trek does not rest on this particular case, nor am I particularly confident in the numbers I'm getting here. And even if this was an integral piece of evidence for my position, in real life, I am a Math major considering taking a minor in chemistry - I'm going into the sciences. If I'm going to have anything like a career in them, not only do I need to develop a thick skin with regards to criticism of my ideas, I need to learn to positively embrace such criticism. So fire away!! The worst you can do is correct one of my mistakes.

Of course, this is exactly what happened anyway, evidently do to inconstancies in the asteroid, though this would make sense. I think the information on document page 84 (pdf pg 94) of this study is relevant in that regard.

JACKPOT!!!!

It'll take me a few days to fully digest and understand that study. The idea of digging a hole for a subsurface nuclear explosion with a kinetic impactor is pretty friggin' cool, though! This link alone justifies the existence of this entire thread, IMO.

So thank you for your well-thought out response! And please, don't ever worry about being "that guy." I couldn't care less about that kind of thing.

[Mike DiCenso]

I remembered this little gem from over 5 years ago when Nowhereman10 did an analysis of the quantum torpedo detonations seen in the Deep Space Nine episode "For the Uniform" which he scaled the explosions to 220 km, which would equate to a 500 to 1,000 megaton explosion, if they were ground bursts. However, as the dialog states and there is no contradiction to this in the episode, they were detonated at 50 km above the surface, and so those are probably far more impressive yields when so little atmosphere is involved.

However, these are no where near the yields you are suggesting for photon and by extension quantum torpedo yields.
-Mike

[Darth Spock]

Well, my intentions of reading more of the various links in this thread, as well as tracking down more information on expected shock wave effects, potential complications of high nickel content in the asteroid, etc. is taking longer than I had hoped, but I wanted to point out a few other concerns about the large yields anticipated from the original study before the idea gets much colder.

First, the idea of "activated" uber-antimatter isn't my favorite way of handling power production, but it certainly works if we need bigger numbers. One problem though, is the prevalence of terawatt, gigawatt and even megawatt power figures in Trek. Those numbers suddenly look pretty small if uber-antimatter is the norm. Of course, humans may have adopted new units of measure standardized throughout the Federation, much as they adopted the stardate calender, but I like that idea even less than the idea of uber-antimatter, and then why keep SI designations?

Another issue worth considering is consistency. As initially pointed out, there are plenty of incidents in Trek that can generate big numbers, but they still don't necessarily mesh well with the overall continuity, or even themselves. I've had times in the past where I'd do some fast, conservative estimates, and find what seemed like a very consistent pattern, only to come back with more precise numbers that gave results all over the map. Case in point here, you've already intentionally underestimated the size of the asteroid for the sake of being conservative, which nonetheless indicated a torpedo yield somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand teratons in order to achieve the expected results. On the other hand, you noted in your last post that a yield significantly higher than 8.5 teratons would probably have had adverse effects on the planet below, and so could be used as an upper limit. Being conservative is great for making a point in the debate for how overwhelmingly powerful something is, but I don't think it helps with the consistency issues here. If a "mere" 10 tereton torpedo can't achieve the results that serve as the basis for these calculations, using it as a conservative lower limit doesn't really accomplish anything.

At any rate, I'm still exceedingly skeptical about these massive numbers being viable for actual weapon yields in Trek. As it is, more conservative estimates in the hundreds of megatons range, or even the TM's 64 megaton figure has Trek ships throwing around ordinance more powerful than the Tsar Bomba with impunity, and that requires a fair bit of tweaking to account for low end examples as it is, it only gets harder with yields deep into the teratons. Still, I have become quite curious to see just what figure would apparently be needed in this formula, adjusting for shock wave heating and the like. More research inbound, phew.

[Moff Tarquin]

First, the idea of "activated" uber-antimatter isn't my favorite way of handling power production, but it certainly works if we need bigger numbers.

What we "need" it for is "Obsession" and "The Immunity Syndrome." It comes in handy if you're trying to explain, say, "The Masterpiece Society." The numbers you get from that latter are well into the thousands of yottawatts - tens of millions of tons of ordinary antimatter would have to be consumed every second.

One problem though, is the prevalence of terawatt, gigawatt and even megawatt power figures in Trek. Those numbers suddenly look pretty small if uber-antimatter is the norm. Of course, humans may have adopted new units of measure standardized throughout the Federation, much as they adopted the stardate calender, but I like that idea even less than the idea of uber-antimatter, and then why keep SI designations?

That does pose a problem, but Star Trek shields have repeatedly proven that "how much" of something you throw at them isn't nearly as important as "what" you throw at them. Polaron weapons don't seem especially powerful, they just completely bypass the shields. Once the shields are modified, everything is hunky-dory. When it comes to power generation, we know for a fact that the Enterprise-D generates millions of terawatts when idling - which is actually rather impressive efficiency, what with the generation of artificial gravity and all. Presumably, when at warp, it could easily require billions or even trillions of terawatts of power.

Another issue worth considering is consistency. As initially pointed out, there are plenty of incidents in Trek that can generate big numbers, but they still don't necessarily mesh well with the overall continuity, or even themselves. I've had times in the past where I'd do some fast, conservative estimates, and find what seemed like a very consistent pattern, only to come back with more precise numbers that gave results all over the map. Case in point here, you've already intentionally underestimated the size of the asteroid for the sake of being conservative, which nonetheless indicated a torpedo yield somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand teratons in order to achieve the expected results. On the other hand, you noted in your last post that a yield significantly higher than 8.5 teratons would probably have had adverse effects on the planet below, and so could be used as an upper limit. Being conservative is great for making a point in the debate for how overwhelmingly powerful something is, but I don't think it helps with the consistency issues here. If a "mere" 10 tereton torpedo can't achieve the results that serve as the basis for these calculations, using it as a conservative lower limit doesn't really accomplish anything.

Like I said, I'm not hanging my hat on the "Rise" numbers. I will hang my hat on A Taste of Armageddon, Bread and Circuses, Whom Gods Destroy, Operation: Annihilate!, Obsession, The Immunity Syndrome, Booby Trap, The Masterpiece Society, The Die is Cast, Broken Link, and Think Tank. All of the above indicate gigaton, teraton, or petaton level firepower in the Trekverse.

If you have any low showings that you think outweigh the above, I'd love to discuss them.

At any rate, I'm still exceedingly skeptical about these massive numbers being viable for actual weapon yields in Trek. As it is, more conservative estimates in the hundreds of megatons range, or even the TM's 64 megaton figure has Trek ships throwing around ordinance more powerful than the Tsar Bomba with impunity, and that requires a fair bit of tweaking to account for low end examples as it is, it only gets harder with yields deep into the teratons.

Again, which low showings in particular?

Still, I have become quite curious to see just what figure would apparently be needed in this formula, adjusting for shock wave heating and the like. More research inbound, phew.

Keep us updated!

[Goper]

In my opinion, the megawatt and kilowatt level power figures provided by Trek don't mesh well with its overall continuity either. For instance, Lysian Central Command's shields were stated to have an output of 4.3 kilojoules. If that were the case, a contemporary sniper rifle would be able to bring down those shields with a single shot, which is pretty low-end i my opinion for a civilization capable of building such large structures in space. The Saturn V, which had a mass of around 3000 tons (according to wikipedia), required around 2 terajoules to deliver 140 tons of payload to LEO. The Lysians are clearly beyond that level of technology, given their ability to construct a multi-kilometre long space station which likely had a mass of at least a million tons. Given this, I think it is rather unreasonable to say that their wartime headquarter's defenses could only absorb that amount of energy before collapsing.

In addition, this figure doesn't even correspond well with other figures provided within the same episode. Within Conundrum, it was also stated that 'the ship-mounted disruptor weapon capacity of a Lysian destroyer was rated at 2.1 megajoules' (Memory Alpha). Depending on the interpretation, this could suggest that a single Lysian destroyer could bring down the shields of Lysian Central Command rather easily.

On one hand, we could say that the producers care about scientific accuracy, and simply inserted those values to make the show sound more scientific; in which case the values stated in the shows would not be much use in determining the effectiveness of weapons and shields in Star Trek. On the other hand, we could say the the output of shields and the capacity of weapons don't relate directly to their actual effectiveness, in which case there wouldn't be much point in discussing about the energy values stated in the show.

[sonofccn]

Belated felicitous and cordial greetings, Moff Tarquin

If I may, please excuse any forwardness on my part, join the discussion:

That does pose a problem, but Star Trek shields have repeatedly proven that "how much" of something you throw at them isn't nearly as important as "what" you throw at them. Polaron weapons don't seem especially powerful, they just completely bypass the shields. Once the shields are modified, everything is hunky-dory.

Your mileage may vary in that regard. Federation Starships have been threatened with EM radiation from stars, physical impacts from asteroids, and even good old fashion "old-style nuclear warheads ", ie Balance of Terror {TOS-1}, leading me to argue Polaron was the exception which proved the rule and, more or less, it more matters how hard and how frequently you hit a starship than the exact composition.

It should also be noted, Polaron completely bypassed the shields while in all of the above cases the shields were eroded rather than bypassed.

Like I said, I'm not hanging my hat on the "Rise" numbers. I will hang my hat on A Taste of Armageddon, Bread and Circuses, Whom Gods Destroy, Operation: Annihilate!, Obsession, The Immunity Syndrome, Booby Trap, The Masterpiece Society, The Die is Cast, Broken Link, and Think Tank. All of the above indicate gigaton, teraton, or petaton level firepower in the Trekverse.

Well, not to be disagreeable, but "A Taste of Armageddon", "Bread and Circuses" and "Whom Gods Destroy" are relatively vague open ended examples without clear, concisely defined level of destruction or time involved. Kilotons and Petatons are equaly supportable from them depending upon one's starting assumptions.

In regards to "Booby Trap", I would ask what evidence is there that it was convential shipboard weaponry which busted the planet as opposed to a knock off of the Xindi superweapon? Afterall, we would get some very strange ideas of US firepower looking at picture's of Hiroshima after the bomb and dividing by the number of battleships we had.

"The Masterpiece Society", in addition to moving the stellar fragment, also has Laforge boasting about the warp core kicking plasma into "the terawatt range". So arguing it is an example of raw, pure power generation is, at best, problematic.

"Broken Link" also suffers from us not knowing exactly what level of destruction Garak thinks is needed to destroy the founders. My first question would be exactly how resilliant are Changlings to high energy/heat examples? Bringing their total mass to boiling point may not be required.

"Think Tank" I must admit I'm not famaliar with the episode. If it is not an imposition, could you elaborate what happens in it?

[Goper]

I don't really have definite proof at the moment, but I believe that Changelings were shown to be rather resistant to Star Trek weaponry, so you'll probably need more energy to destroy the Great Link than you would to vaporise equivalent mass of water. Maybe Moff Tarquin can elaborate on this example a little more though, if it isn't inconvenient?

Regarding the "terawatt range" quote, perhaps you could take a look at my previous post regarding the accuracy of power figures provided by the show? If you don't mind, some feedback about my theory would also be nice.

As an aside, the most powerful shell for the Iowa class was the Mk-23 16 In. Naval Shell, which had a 15-20 kiloton warhead; similar to that of Little Boy's :P

[sonofccn]

Edit: A warm welcome to you as well Goper. My apologies for any delay.

I don't really have definite proof at the moment, but I believe that Changelings were shown to be rather resistant to Star Trek weaponry, so you'll probably need more energy to destroy the Great Link than you would to vaporize equivalent mass of water.

Well, in Apocalypse Rising {DS9-05}, we see it takes several shots by multiple Klingons, on an unknown disrupter setting, to explode apart. Your mileage my vary, but the large gathering of Klingons don't react like a man sized glob of boiling hot liquid just exploded in front of them.

Regarding the "terawatt range" quote, perhaps you could take a look at my previous post regarding the accuracy of power figures provided by the show? If you don't mind, some feedback about my theory would also be nice.

I make no argument any one power figure is an accurate fit for the show. But they are canon material, no more or less "real" as any other part of the show.

As an aside, the most powerful shell for the Iowa class was the Mk-23 16 In. Naval Shell, which had a 15-20 kiloton warhead; similar to that of Little Boy's :P

Nuclear ordinance is possible, but is atypical and the Iowa is not designed to withstand such an attack. Per the argument regarding "Booby Trap", one would assume a "primitive", retired class of ship would be throwing such shells around as a matter of course and have the corresponding armor to withstand such energies.

[Moff Tarquin]

Belated felicitous and cordial greetings, Moff Tarquin

If I may, please excuse any forwardness on my part, join the discussion:

How can I say no to such a polite interlocutor?

That does pose a problem, but Star Trek shields have repeatedly proven that "how much" of something you throw at them isn't nearly as important as "what" you throw at them. Polaron weapons don't seem especially powerful, they just completely bypass the shields. Once the shields are modified, everything is hunky-dory.

Your mileage may vary in that regard. Federation Starships have been threatened with EM radiation from stars, physical impacts from asteroids, and even good old fashion "old-style nuclear warheads ", ie Balance of Terror {TOS-1}, leading me to argue Polaron was the exception which proved the rule and, more or less, it more matters how hard and how frequently you hit a starship than the exact composition.

It should also be noted, Polaron completely bypassed the shields while in all of the above cases the shields were eroded rather than bypassed.

One of the things I believe very strongly is that most shields in Sci-Fi DO NOT work by an "absorption and re-emission" system. The shields from Niven and Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye work that way. But when we look at Star Trek, at any rate, there are several reasons to think that this ISN'T what's going on. Number one, the terms "shields" and "deflector shields" can be treated as synonyms under many circumstances, indicating that the point of a shield isn't so much "absorb it before it hits the hull" as it is "make sure it doesn't hit the hull in the first place." This is further backed up by the fact that we have at least one okudagram that mentions gravitons in the context of shields, indicating that shields work by distorting space time around the ship - which would indeed lend itself to "deflection" of projectiles.

More to the point, every time a hit lands on the shields, the ship shakes and we see effects on the bridge - sparks, small explosions, etc. This indicates that not all of the impact of a blow is "absorbed." However, it's entirely reasonable to assume that the hit has been "diffused," and that a shot that would have blown a hole in the ship just shakes it around and dents it a bit.

Finally, in the episode "Survivors," Worf refers to the act of "reassembling" the shields, indicating that, even if there isn't baryonic matter out there, there's definitely some sort of persisting structure to the shield that is altered by incoming weapon fire.

All of this together points to a view of shields that is far more interesting and physically realistic than the "hit points" "catastrophic existence failure" model. My personal view is that the percentages we constantly hear are either a) a complex measure of the structural integrity of the persisting shield structure, or b) a measure of how much juice is left in the capacitors that power the shields. I sort of waffle between the two views depending on what kind of a mood I'm in.

To understand my view, imagine a transparent riot shield. It will stop incoming fists almost with impunity. A bullet has a real possibility of getting through, but (depending on the variety of shield) there's also a real possibility that it will be stopped or deflected. A laser operating in visible wavelengths will pass through it almost like it isn't there - bypassing it, if you will.

In an analogy to Star Trek shields, I would say that fists and suchlike are analogous to most energy weapons. Bullets are analogous to high powered energy weapons (in the tens of exawatts, like the phaser in "Masks"), sufficiently large/fast kinetic impactors, antimatter annihilation weapons, and sufficiently large nukes. The shield can save your life, give you one or two more chances than you would have had without it, but it can only do so much. This is particularly easy to understand if the primary mode of action is diffusion or deflection: an energy weapon of sufficient power will cause problems because it will heat the hull substantially, and a nuclear explosion is already mostly "diffused" over a wide surface. Finally, the laser is analogous to something like a phased polaron beam - the shield is just transparent to it. Jacketed antimatter a la "Survivors" may or may not be analogous to the lasers, depending on a) what "Jacketed antimatter" is, b) whether the "forty megawatts" and "four hundred gigawatts" were measures of actual energy deposition on the shields, or a measure of the kinetic energy of the "jacketed antimatter," and c) how much of the entire encounter was just an illusion.

Like I said, I'm not hanging my hat on the "Rise" numbers. I will hang my hat on A Taste of Armageddon, Bread and Circuses, Whom Gods Destroy, Operation: Annihilate!, Obsession, The Immunity Syndrome, Booby Trap, The Masterpiece Society, The Die is Cast, Broken Link, and Think Tank. All of the above indicate gigaton, teraton, or petaton level firepower in the Trekverse.

Well, not to be disagreeable, but "A Taste of Armageddon", "Bread and Circuses" and "Whom Gods Destroy" are relatively vague open ended examples without clear, concisely defined level of destruction or time involved. Kilotons and Petatons are equaly supportable from them depending upon one's starting assumptions.

A Taste of Armageddon - Scotty: "In one hour and forty-five minutes, the entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed."

Bread and Circuses - Marcus: "From what I understand, your vessel could lay waste to the entire surface of our world."

Whom Gods Destroy - Scotty : "Mister Sulu. What do your sensors show?"
Sulu : "We can't beam anybody down sir. The forcefield on the planet is in full operation and all forms of transport into the asylum dome are blocked off."
Scotty : "Aye... we could blast our way through the field but only at the risk of destroying the Captain, Mister Spock and any other living thing on Elba II."
McCoy : "How can we be powerful enough to wipe out a planet and still be so helpless!"

Note that McCoy doesn't say that the ship is "powerful enough to wipe out a shielded outpost," but "powerful enough to wipe out a planet." This would appear to indicate that, despite the fact that the asylum may be alone down there, even against a more earth-like civiization, Enterprise could blast a planet back into the stone age in short order.

Moreover:
Scotty : "Well, there's one last thing we might try. Perhaps the ship's phasers can cut through a section of the forcefield at it's weakest point. Where did you say that was located Mister Sulu?"
Sulu : "On the far side of the planet Mister Scott."
McCoy : "Will it leave a margin of safety for the people below?"
Scotty : "Prepare to change orbital path Mister Sulu."

Note 1) even on the far side of the planet, the best option open to Enterprise is to "cut through" a section of the forcefield - as opposed to "blasting through" - indicating that a brute force strike would still be risky to the asylum on the other side of the planet. 2) even with the precision strike method, McCoy is still worried about a "margin of safety" for the people below. This indicates that either a) there are colonies on the side of the planet opposite the asylum - in which case killing "every living thing on Elba II" becomes a heck of a lot more impressive, or b) McCoy is under the impression that a weapon strike on one side of the planet is capable of adversely effecting an asylum on the other side of the planet - which, while not conclusive proof a brute force strike would be capable of effecting the entire planet, certainly indicates that Enterprise's capabilities far exceed anything achievable with current technology - which in turn casts doubt on any photon torpedo yield - indeed, any phaser energy - south of a hundred megatons.

Alone, each remark is inconclusive. Together, however, they make a powerful case for an Enterprise capable of wiping an Industrial civilization off of the map completely.

In regards to "Booby Trap", I would ask what evidence is there that it was convential shipboard weaponry which busted the planet as opposed to a knock off of the Xindi superweapon? Afterall, we would get some very strange ideas of US firepower looking at picture's of Hiroshima after the bomb and dividing by the number of battleships we had.

The biggest issue with it being some kind of superweapon is that Data says "The destruction is remarkable considering the primitive weapons of the period."

Today, with our "big bombs of death" in the tens of megatons, and even our precision missiles have yields in the hundreds of kilotons, we can look down our noses at the Hiroshima bomb. There is no indication that any Trek power, even in the twenty-fourth century, would look down its nose at the Xindi superweapon. They do, however, look down their noses at whatever did that to Orelious Nine.

In any case, we can be confident that, if the Federation wanted to, it could produce a weapon capable of even more impressive effects.

If you would like to continue discussion of this point, feel free to bring this line of discussion over to my "Rehabilitating The Die is Cast" thread!

"The Masterpiece Society", in addition to moving the stellar fragment, also has Laforge boasting about the warp core kicking plasma into "the terawatt range". So arguing it is an example of raw, pure power generation is, at best, problematic.

1) LaForge prefixes the "terawatt range" comment with "normally." Given that moving the neutron star quite literally pushed the Enterprise-D to its limits, we can safely assume that power output in the thousands of yottawatts is not "normal."
2) LaForge does not say that the power output of the starship is in the terawatt range, he says that the plasma is "kicked up into" the terawatt range, which is a rather peculiar phrasing. So we have a little bit of wiggle room - perhaps we have a terawatt being produced for every kilogram of plasma leaving the reactor, or something along those lines.
3) Is a device that produces, say, 12.75 billion gigawatts "in the gigawatt range"? If so, then just about any power above a trillion watts is consistent with LaForge's dialogue.

"Broken Link" also suffers from us not knowing exactly what level of destruction Garak thinks is needed to destroy the founders. My first question would be exactly how resilliant are Changlings to high energy/heat examples? Bringing their total mass to boiling point may not be required.

Strictly speaking, the amount of energy required to heat-kill the Great Link could be lower by an order of magnitude. We know that the reach "peak liquidity" at 17 degrees Celsius from "The Begotten," as opposed to the 4 degrees of most of our oceans, so we can already shave about 15% off of the figure. Add in the fact that you probably wouldn't need to go all the way to boiling, and you could probably cut the figure in half.

On the other hand, pulse phasers and quantum torpedoes are not the most efficient means of heating something. The most important factor, IMHO, is that each individual torpedo has to be sufficient to take out thousands upon thousands of cubic kilometers of Great Link, and Garak wasn't even a hundred percent sure he could get the phasers online.

Think for a moment about modern nuclear strategy. To cover thirty thousand square kilometers with 5 psi overpressure, you can either use a single 2.8 gigaton bomb (AFAIK, impossible with current nuclear stockpiles), or you can use a thousand 88 kiloton bombs, with a combined yield of 88 megatons (something the U.S. could do within the month if it really had to).

If the Defiant had 5e23 thermal charges with one joule each, it could probably sterilize the Great Link with "only" 5e23 J. But it doesn't. It has a number of quantum torpedoes not exceeding three hundred. Which means that it could take many orders of magnitude more energy to eliminate the Great Link with quantum torpedoes than it would take to heat the Mediterranean sea to boiling.

If you would like to continue discussion of this point, feel free to bring this line of discussion over to my "Rehabilitating The Die is Cast" thread!

"Think Tank" I must admit I'm not famaliar with the episode. If it is not an imposition, could you elaborate what happens in it?

I think a series of images from TrekCore should bring you up to speed.










I really think that the images speak for themselves.

From what I understand, the planet was set off by bounty hunters who were trying to disable Voyager, but Janeway escaped by pumping more power to the shields and blowing up the debris field with Voyager's phasers (the debris included some kind of technobabble gas. For that matter, the planet was blown up with technobabble), which served very effectively to distract the bounty hunters' vessel.

[sonofccn]

Reply given here

[Darth Spock]

Like sonofccn, I'll forward my the rest of my thoughts on discrepancies to the "Rehabilitating The Die is Cast" thread. I still plan on compiling a list of lower end contradictions to extremely high end examples, as well as providing possible explanations/counterpoints to a number of seemingly huge power requirements, but have hardly even started yet!

In my opinion, the megawatt and kilowatt level power figures provided by Trek don't mesh well with its overall continuity either. For instance, Lysian Central Command's shields were stated to have an output of 4.3 kilojoules.

Before moving over to the other thread, I might add to this thought that this wasn't really a relevant power as far as the Federation was concerned, so exceedingly low power figures here aren't really key. Also, regarding the seemingly low shield output compared to their own weapons, consider that in the 2150's humans didn't have any shields at all. Remember also that the Satarran's warring with the Lysian's had developed such advanced computer, biological, and broadcast technologies that they commandeered an entire Galaxy Class star ship, crew and all! But they had no more powerful weapons themselves. Technologies may well develop in radically different ways depending on culture, available resources and immediate circumstances. Such as the Inca, who did not employ the wheel. (Fun fact, the concept wasn't lost on them, it just wasn't conducive to their circumstances.) Or, I wonder how the world would look today if in the 1930's two alternate dimensions split off, one where fission and fusion technologies were never developed, another where the transistor was never invented. How would things be different... who would win in a fight? ;)

[2046]

I once calc'ed "Think Tank" as a 300 megaton hit to Voyager's shields, so that's no biggie. I could take it up to a gigaton, which is ten torpedoes in my usual view . . . helluva punch but not instant doom, which roughly corresponds to the presentation of the effect on the ship in the episode.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads ... his.52951/