Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

For polite and reasoned discussion of Star Wars and/or Star Trek.
sonofccn
Starship Captain
Posts: 1657
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:23 pm
Location: Sol system, Earth,USA

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by sonofccn » Mon Feb 29, 2016 6:11 am

Moff Tarquin wrote:Several of the things included in the list (particularly "Think Tank," "Booby Trap," "Operation Annihilate!," and most of the GO 24 examples) are included as indicators of the qualitative capabilities of the Federation. We are dealing with a civilization that could improvise petaton explosive devices and threaten planets capable of interplanetary war with a generation ago, and now has ships with shields that tank exploding planetoids (the ludicrous stuff Warsies said the DSI's shield could do? We've seen Voyager actually do it onscreen!) and looks down its nose on munitions that turn a planetary surface into an asteroid field. Why, then, should we be surprised when the peers of this civilization seriously consider leaving their enemy's homeworld a naked core floating in space? Why should we be surprised when they move neutron stars around? Why should we be surprised if a few volleys of their standard ship-to-ship weapons can sterilize a mass of fluid larger than Lake Superior?

That, in a nutshell, is my position. Other relevant information about my position has been sent to you via PM.
My issue is the how, why and what concerning the examples you use to try and determine the "qualitative capabilities of the Federation". What "Booby Trap" says changes remarkably depending on if we assume it exploded via triggering a seismic fault like, ala the Xindi homeworld, blown up by Dreadnought sized torpedoes loaded to the gills with Kemocite or blasted apart by a fleet with conventional munitions. Only the last one would have any meaning or relevance in regards to the firepower to 24th century starships.

So it is important to know exactly what you think blew the planet up and why you are treating it as an example of firepower for photon torpedoes.

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Feb 29, 2016 6:54 pm

Moff Tarquin wrote:While contemplating my reply to Mr. Oragahn, I came to several realizations regarding our primary datapoint with respect to General Order 24. The results of those musing may be found here.

If something is not addressed there, assume that I intend to address it here.
And to KISSize this even more, there are actually two points that developed throughout this thread: TDiC as the main topic, and the case of the asylum on Elba II.
Regarding the later, unless there's something novel evidence that's going to be presented to support a view that is contradictory to mine, I'd suggest we solely focus on TDiC.

My view regarding this was that the weapons were not conventional. Perhaps they were rare too.
Either the disruptors were used to drop different types of particles, or they were used at their normal capability to add spice (enhance) the already exotic reaction triggered by the torpedoes mainly.
Torpedoes carried some special big boom and in order to explain the faster than possible waves, something akin to Genesis sparkle-goo was used or they were the manifestation of a massive subspace phenomenon.
That's mainly to bring something when discussing the visuals.
Dialogue is an entire different beast to tackle.

All in all, I'd argue that it required preparation for the Tal'shiar and Obsidian Order to get those weapons ready, and that as they were only used once during the whole war, I'd argue that we should expect the same in the case of any use for some fictional versus battle : one shot wonder.

User avatar
Moff Tarquin
Bridge Officer
Posts: 88
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2016 7:51 pm

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Moff Tarquin » Mon Feb 29, 2016 11:34 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Moff Tarquin wrote:While contemplating my reply to Mr. Oragahn, I came to several realizations regarding our primary datapoint with respect to General Order 24. The results of those musing may be found here.

If something is not addressed there, assume that I intend to address it here.
And to KISSize this even more, there are actually two points that developed throughout this thread: TDiC as the main topic, and the case of the asylum on Elba II.
Regarding the later, unless there's something novel evidence that's going to be presented to support a view that is contradictory to mine, I'd suggest we solely focus on TDiC.
I'm down with that. It would make things simpler for everybody.
My view regarding this was that the weapons were not conventional. Perhaps they were rare too.
Either the disruptors were used to drop different types of particles, or they were used at their normal capability to add spice (enhance) the already exotic reaction triggered by the torpedoes mainly.
Torpedoes carried some special big boom and in order to explain the faster than possible waves, something akin to Genesis sparkle-goo was used or they were the manifestation of a massive subspace phenomenon.
That's mainly to bring something when discussing the visuals.
Dialogue is an entire different beast to tackle.

All in all, I'd argue that it required preparation for the Tal'shiar and Obsidian Order to get those weapons ready, and that as they were only used once during the whole war, I'd argue that we should expect the same in the case of any use for some fictional versus battle : one shot wonder.
I think that "discussing the visuals" is counterproductive 90% of the time.

Hollywood ALWAYS depicts explosions in space EXACTLY like explosions on the ground. Right down to the audible "BANG!" Right there, we already can SEE that they're taking HUGE liberties with "what actually happened in the story."

Here's a quick tutorial:

Explosions in space won't have lingering fireballs. Vaporized stuff meets no resistance in a vacuum, so it just keeps on sailing. When it's moving at speeds measured in the hundreds or thousands of kilometers per second (typical for a nuke-level explosive device), the result will be a blinding flash leaving nothing behind (save perhaps the eviscerated remains of the hapless target).

Explosions in space won't have a turbulent edge. That's caused in atmospheric fireballs because of interaction with the surrounding air. There is no surrounding air in vacuum. While the expanding cloud usually won't be a perfect sphere, it'll be a lot closer to that than it will be to the billowing clouds we're always saddled with - or, it will be for the millisecond or so of its existence.

Even if the explosion manages to ignite a fire (which it will only do if the target is carrying both a fuel and an oxidizer in sufficient quantity), the appearance will be nothing at all like fires on earth. It won't flicker unless the supply of fuel/oxidizer is unsteady, because there's no ambient atmospheric currents to make it flicker. And it won't be directional, because there's no gravity pulling denser air out of its way, and no denser air to get out of its way in the first place. I'm probably not explaining this well, so just look and see for yourself:
Image
Image
But of course, we never see a silent, spherical, flashbulb explosion leaving a ripped open target with some gentle blue glow where stuff is "on fire." No, we always see a big billowing cloud that lasts for seconds or longer with an audible "BANG."

When the makers are taking so many liberties with the visuals, why should we regard them as reliable?

I'm really going to push you on this point, because your argument appears to be "Visual shot X is inconsistent with any known physical effect, therefore the weapons used in X are not DET." But that same argument applies to literally every space explosion in mainstream science fiction! Are you committing yourself to the complete absence of DET weapons in mainstream sci-fi? Are you choosing to use this argument in one case but ignore it in others that seem (to you) "more reasonable"? Or are you willing to drop the visuals because they have proven themselves to be completely unreliable representations of "what really happened" more or less 100% of the time?

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:15 pm

Burn in space? Fire heats air???? o_O
Explosions in space won't have lingering fireballs. Vaporized stuff meets no resistance in a vacuum, so it just keeps on sailing. When it's moving at speeds measured in the hundreds or thousands of kilometers per second (typical for a nuke-level explosive device), the result will be a blinding flash leaving nothing behind (save perhaps the eviscerated remains of the hapless target).
Actually, it depends on what is hit. The "fireball" per se wouldn't linger as it would freely expand super fast, but the heat transmited to the materials and the overall chaotic disruption of matter and more or less efficient ejection of particles around the point of impact would create a haze around the target and we'd still see a glow, perhaps a very, very luminous one. After all, not all particles will be properly ejected. Some will barely be pushed away. Also, once the main explosion has happened, the target might be leaking materials and be ejecting even more hazes of particles, but at a much lower pace.
Some movies and series actually got that part right at times.

User avatar
Moff Tarquin
Bridge Officer
Posts: 88
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2016 7:51 pm

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Moff Tarquin » Thu Mar 03, 2016 1:49 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Burn in space? Fire heats air???? o_O
You can light a candle while onboard the ISS, mate. Or, for that matter, you can light a magnesium hull that's leaking atmosphere from a hole close enough to the burning area.
Explosions in space won't have lingering fireballs. Vaporized stuff meets no resistance in a vacuum, so it just keeps on sailing. When it's moving at speeds measured in the hundreds or thousands of kilometers per second (typical for a nuke-level explosive device), the result will be a blinding flash leaving nothing behind (save perhaps the eviscerated remains of the hapless target).
Actually, it depends on what is hit. The "fireball" per se wouldn't linger as it would freely expand super fast, but the heat transmited to the materials and the overall chaotic disruption of matter and more or less efficient ejection of particles around the point of impact would create a haze around the target and we'd still see a glow, perhaps a very, very luminous one. After all, not all particles will be properly ejected. Some will barely be pushed away. Also, once the main explosion has happened, the target might be leaking materials and be ejecting even more hazes of particles, but at a much lower pace.
Some movies and series actually got that part right at times.
You seem to be under the impression that there is a slight modicum of realism in Hollywood space explosions. Let me relieve you of that misapprehension. Unless there was a continuous reaction with a rapid influx of reactants (which would indeed produce a hazy glow distended somewhat in the direction of reaction flow), that "haze" will disperse at a rate proportional to the square root of the temperature of the glowing stuff. At room temperature, molecules are moving at an average rate of half a kilometer every second. If stuff's glowing a dull red, it's probably around 1000 K, and thus moving something like 0.9 km/s. If stuff's glowing white, it'll be closer to 6000 K, and moving at 2 km/s. And it won't slow down as it grows. Ever. So, no matter the yield of the explosion, it should be twice as wide as the Enterprise-D is long within one second (and proportionately dimmer, being more diffuse), and continue to grow and fade at the same rate forever. We never see anything even remotely like that. That alone means that 99% of the explosions we see onscreen are total bull$#!%.

As a general rule, this is what a a nuke striking an unshielded object should look like in space:
First off, the weapon itself. A nuclear explosion in space, will look pretty much like a Very Very Bright flashbulb going off. The effects are instantaneous or nearly so. There is no fireball. The gaseous remains of the weapon may be incandescent, but they are also expanding at about a thousand kilometers per second, so one frame after detonation they will have dissipated to the point of invisibility. Just a flash.

The effects on the ship itself, those are a bit more visible. If you're getting impulsive shock damage, you will by definition see hot gas boiling off from the surface. Again, the effect is instantaneous, but this time the vapor will expand at maybe one kilometer per second, so depending on the scale you might be able to see some of this action. But don't blink; it will be quick.

Next is spallation - shocks will bounce back and forth through the skin of the target, probably tearing chunks off both sides. Some of these may come off at mere hundreds of meters per second. And they will be hot, red- or maybe even white-hot depending on the material.

To envision the appearance of this part, a thought experiment. Or, heck, go ahead and actually perform it. Start with a big piece of sheet metal, covered in a fine layer of flour and glitter. Shine a spotlight on it, in an otherwise-dark room. Then whack the thing with a sledgehammer, hard enough for the recoil to knock the flour and glitter into the air.

The haze of brightly-lit flour is your vaporized hull material, and the bits of glitter are the spallation. Scale up the velocities as needed, and ignore the bit where air resistance and gravity brings everything to a halt.

Next, the exposed hull is going to be quite hot, probably close to the melting point. So, dull red even for aluminum, brilliant white for steel or titanium or most ceramics or composites. The seriously hot layer will only be a millimeter or so thick, so it can cool fairly quickly - a second or two for a thick metallic hull that can cool by internal conduction, possibly as long as a minute for something thin and/or insulating that has to cool by radiation.

After this, if the shock is strong enough, the hull is going to be materially deformed. For this, take the sledgehammer from your last thought experiment and give a whack to some tin cans. Depending on how hard you hit them, and whether they are full or empty, you can get effects ranging from mild denting at weak points, crushing and tearing, all the way to complete obliteration with bits of tin-can remnant and tin-can contents splattered across the landscape.

Again, this will be much faster in reality than in the thought experiment. And note that a spacecraft will have many weak points to be dented, fragile bits to be torn off, and they all get hit at once. If the hull is of isogrid construction, which is pretty common, you might see an intact triangular lattice with shallow dents in between. Bits of antenna and whatnot, tumbling away.

Finally, secondary effects. Part of your ship is likely to be pressurized, either habitat space or propellant tank. Coolant and drinking water and whatnot, as well. With serious damage, that stuff is going to vent to space. You can probably see this happening (air and water and some propellants will freeze into snow as they escape, BTW). You'll also see the reaction force try to tumble the spacecraft, and if the spacecraft's attitude control systems are working you'll see them try to fight back.

You might see fires, if reactive materials are escaping. But not convection flames, of course. Diffuse jets of flame, or possibly surface reactions. Maybe secondary explosions if concentrations of reactive gasses are building up in enclosed (more or less) spaces.

-Dr. John Schilling
Source. Emphasis added.

An explosion in space should have the following elements: 1) a blinding flash where the nuke goes off, with nothing worth speaking of beyond that at the point of detonation, 2) a rapidly dissipating haze thrown from the surface of the space craft, along with spallations, all expanding at a constant rate and never slowing down.

So as you can see, a DET nuke-level detonation will look nothing at all like what we see onscreen. Therefore, either ship-to-ship photon torpedoes operate on as-yet-unknown physics (just like the kind of things you propose for TDiC), or visual special-effects shots in general are unreliable to the point that we should regard them as inaccurate until proven accurate. Pick your poison, or get a better expert than John Schilling.

Darth Spock
Bridge Officer
Posts: 216
Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 8:28 pm
Location: A Beta Quadrant far far away

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Darth Spock » Fri Mar 11, 2016 4:15 am

I still haven't gotten around to seriously delving into this (it's been floating around in my "to do" list for years already), and until now this thread has been pretty lively, so I didn't see any point in cluttering things up with my thinking out loud. I do have a few questions/observations to make though. First, I'm curious as to the basic process you used to arrive at the 1e30 J of energy, Moff Tarquin. Making a fast guesstimation, it looks like you're figuring on thermally vaporizing the surface of an Earth sized planet to a depth of about 100 km.

With regard to Garak's plan to wipe out the Founders, I hate to say it, but it sounds stereotypically Cardassian in its blunt shortsightedness, his actual chances of success before the Defiant would be blown apart were probably pretty low. On the other hand, I think you may be overestimating just how resilient Changelings are. In DS9 "The Ship" one outlived the crew of solids on it's ship when the inertial dampers failed, but did still die of its (injuries?) within a day. Then in DS9 "The Adversary" one is killed by being shoved against the orange glowing portion of a warp core. Ostensibly he was killed by radiation poisoning, although humans were standing only a couple meters away, so we are most likely not looking at ridiculously high radiation levels. So the Founders are tough, but far from indestructible. Also, seeing as how the Great Link is, well, the "Great Link," unless they actually do cover the better part of the entire planet, there's only one place he needs to concentrate his fire. Oh, and the Defiant does have at least one "garden hose" phaser emitter.
Moff Tarquin wrote: My position is that torpedoes in "knife fight range" situations are set to ~10 gigatons. That fits in well with the 2 gigaton/second phaser firepower we see in episodes like Masks. Under such assumptions, shield flares would only occur if hundreds of megatons were deposited upon the shields in short order. In short, the benchmark for "what causes a shield flare" has been moved up.
Quick thought on that, if indeed that is the case, you could never use a close formation of ships, or your neighbors, all packing souped up M/AM reactors, would be like hellburners waiting to take out their allies, assuming such massive power levels are the norm. And you certainly wouldn't dare use them in close defensive orbit around a planet.

Goper
Redshirt
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 9:01 am

Post by Goper » Mon Mar 14, 2016 8:25 am

Sorry, I accidentally created a duplicate post and want sure how to delete it.
Last edited by Goper on Mon Mar 14, 2016 9:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Goper
Redshirt
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 9:01 am

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Goper » Mon Mar 14, 2016 9:03 am

Darth Spock wrote:
  • 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? ;)
I apologise for taking over a month to respond to you, but I was rather busy recently. I believe it was rather likely that the Lysians had access to nuclear fusion weaponry, since Lysian Central Command was equipped with "thirty-nine cobalt fusion warheads with magnetic propulsion", in addition to its four laser cannons.

The point I was trying to make regarding them being a space-going civilisation was that the minimum amount of energy needed to loft objects of the scale of Lysian constructs into space, or move them around in a reasonable amount of time, far exceeds the 4.3 kilojoule figure we are given for the shield. In this case, the Lysians could collapse Central Command's shield just by nudging one of their spacecraft against it, if the level of damage a shield can withstand does indeed correspond with its output. It's possible, though that the shield is in place to prevent beaming. If that's the case though, I think it's rather strange for the shield to be mentioned along with the hard defensive systems of the station by Data; it may have been more appropriate for him to comment on the station's armour instead.
Quick thought on that, if indeed that is the case, you could never use a close formation of ships, or your neighbors, all packing souped up M/AM reactors, would be like hellburners waiting to take out their allies, assuming such massive power levels are the norm. And you certainly wouldn't dare use them in close defensive orbit around a planet.
Even if we use the more conservative estimates of star trek energy production levels (tens to hundred of megatons per second produced by the warp core at peak output), warp cores exploding above a planet at the distance shown in the scene would pose severe risks to the occupants of said planet, unless they were protected in some way. I believe that the Dominion was only using the planet as a place to assemble its fleet in that particular, instead of intending to fight a battle there. Please correct me if I'm wrong, though. Besides, it's again very hard to say whether the visuals truly reflect the producers' intentions for the story, or are just for dramatic effect. As an aside, my general feel is that people in Star Trek don't really consider planets to be safe places to be on when there is a space battle close by, which fits your point pretty well.

Regarding your point about them not being able to fight in close formation without being in danger of killing each other, I would think the same would apply even if the warp cores were not "souped up"? The damage that exploding ships would deal to their allies would be smaller, but the durability of there allies would also scale down accordingly, so I don't really see why using higher power levels is any more problematic then lower power levels (I personally think that fighting in such close proximity, whatever the power level of the combatants involved, is rather problematic, though). In my opinion, assuming that the visuals are inaccurate in most combat scenes requires less convoluted logic.

Edit: I thought about it, and realised that we've been assuming that warp cores and fuel tanks release all their energy when they lose containment. If warp cores are not merely antimatter reactors, that may not be the case.[/quote]

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Mar 14, 2016 2:42 pm

Moff Tarquin wrote:You can light a candle while onboard the ISS, mate. Or, for that matter, you can light a magnesium hull that's leaking atmosphere from a hole close enough to the burning area.
That is not space. It's pressurized atmosphere, which is still air, but without the convection and negligible gravity if you happen to orbit a planet. This piece of science for dummies has taken shortcuts which are symptomatic of current people wanting to shorten everything and deliver information in th fastest way possible, at the expense of accuracy. It wouldn't have been that much of some extra character space to get the facts right.
What we got however is wrong for all sorts of reasons.
You seem to be under the impression that there is a slight modicum of realism in Hollywood space explosions.
Nothing of what I described ascribes to the typical movie fireball in space cliché. I simply haven't been as technical as the piece you quoted (which I've already read too many years ago).
As a general rule, this is what a a nuke striking an unshielded object should look like in space:
First off, the weapon itself. A nuclear explosion in space, will look pretty much like a Very Very Bright flashbulb going off. The effects are instantaneous or nearly so. There is no fireball. The gaseous remains of the weapon may be incandescent, but they are also expanding at about a thousand kilometers per second, so one frame after detonation they will have dissipated to the point of invisibility. Just a flash.

The effects on the ship itself, those are a bit more visible. If you're getting impulsive shock damage, you will by definition see hot gas boiling off from the surface. Again, the effect is instantaneous, but this time the vapor will expand at maybe one kilometer per second, so depending on the scale you might be able to see some of this action. But don't blink; it will be quick.

Next is spallation - shocks will bounce back and forth through the skin of the target, probably tearing chunks off both sides. Some of these may come off at mere hundreds of meters per second. And they will be hot, red- or maybe even white-hot depending on the material.

To envision the appearance of this part, a thought experiment. Or, heck, go ahead and actually perform it. Start with a big piece of sheet metal, covered in a fine layer of flour and glitter. Shine a spotlight on it, in an otherwise-dark room. Then whack the thing with a sledgehammer, hard enough for the recoil to knock the flour and glitter into the air.

The haze of brightly-lit flour is your vaporized hull material, and the bits of glitter are the spallation. Scale up the velocities as needed, and ignore the bit where air resistance and gravity brings everything to a halt.

Next, the exposed hull is going to be quite hot, probably close to the melting point. So, dull red even for aluminum, brilliant white for steel or titanium or most ceramics or composites. The seriously hot layer will only be a millimeter or so thick, so it can cool fairly quickly - a second or two for a thick metallic hull that can cool by internal conduction, possibly as long as a minute for something thin and/or insulating that has to cool by radiation.

After this, if the shock is strong enough, the hull is going to be materially deformed. For this, take the sledgehammer from your last thought experiment and give a whack to some tin cans. Depending on how hard you hit them, and whether they are full or empty, you can get effects ranging from mild denting at weak points, crushing and tearing, all the way to complete obliteration with bits of tin-can remnant and tin-can contents splattered across the landscape.

Again, this will be much faster in reality than in the thought experiment. And note that a spacecraft will have many weak points to be dented, fragile bits to be torn off, and they all get hit at once. If the hull is of isogrid construction, which is pretty common, you might see an intact triangular lattice with shallow dents in between. Bits of antenna and whatnot, tumbling away.

Finally, secondary effects. Part of your ship is likely to be pressurized, either habitat space or propellant tank. Coolant and drinking water and whatnot, as well. With serious damage, that stuff is going to vent to space. You can probably see this happening (air and water and some propellants will freeze into snow as they escape, BTW). You'll also see the reaction force try to tumble the spacecraft, and if the spacecraft's attitude control systems are working you'll see them try to fight back.

You might see fires, if reactive materials are escaping. But not convection flames, of course. Diffuse jets of flame, or possibly surface reactions. Maybe secondary explosions if concentrations of reactive gasses are building up in enclosed (more or less) spaces.

-Dr. John Schilling
Source. Emphasis added.

An explosion in space should have the following elements: 1) a blinding flash where the nuke goes off, with nothing worth speaking of beyond that at the point of detonation, 2) a rapidly dissipating haze thrown from the surface of the space craft, along with spallations, all expanding at a constant rate and never slowing down.
Which just turns out to be what I talked about. Then again, it's a nuke, not some fancy and much less explosive turbolaser blast or plasma-thingy, especially with energy deliver at a much lower wattage than with a nuke. Plus, the author doesn't consider most important elements relevant in space warfare involving heavy armour; namely that you need both massive coupling anywhere you can get it (preferably a lot from the hull itself but also from the casing to create an initial solid blast wave) and you also need as much penetration as possible. The very fact that the source talks of only a millimeter of hull being heated up proves it straight away that he talks about a vanilla nuke detonated some distance from a hull, a weapon that just happened to be floating there.
Real requirements mean the nuke will be encased in a delivery craft that will be quite heavy and purposedly made thick and dense. It will likely be capable of propulsion too. This ought to provide a bit more visibility to the initial explosion (not much but still more than just detonating a nuclear device in complete vacuum), and far more to the final wound in the ship's flank. Also, part of the design will attempt to focus most of the nuclear energy forward.

One could also note that the many flashes we got in old Star Wars films's space battles are surprisingly close to nuclear detonations in vacuum. They generally last about a frame, maximum two, and are vivid white flashes.

Also, for his case of a nuke with zero penetration, he still articulates that "the vapor will expand at maybe one kilometer per second", which turns out to be around 40 meters per frame at 25 fps. A bit more than half a Star Destroyer's length over a full second. For zero penetration and simple surface burning.
This turns out to be quite visible, screen-wise. And it only gets more visible the greater the damage. Which obviously well designed space weapons will cause, instead of this nearly irrelevant nude nuke scenario.

Picard578
Padawan
Posts: 55
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2016 7:51 am

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Picard578 » Sat Aug 20, 2016 9:25 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:With the levels of energy you're talking about, any short range detonation would have all ships' shields in the close vicinity to flare up every single time a torpedo would blow up against another ship's shield.
But Star Trek torpedoes are shaped-charge projectiles, at least from late TNG onwards. Shields won't flare up if there is no energy hitting them.

Mike DiCenso
Security Officer
Posts: 5836
Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2006 8:49 pm

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Mike DiCenso » Tue Sep 13, 2016 8:12 pm

But not all torpedoes are shape-charge, Picard. We know from TNG's "Preemptive Strike" that torpedoes can and are used to create omni-directional explosions when used in proximity blast mode.
-Mike

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Sep 21, 2016 5:30 pm

Besides, if shields deflect, they stuff they throw back gotta bounce off something else nearby, although that depends a lot on the angling; but for example, hitting a typical UFP ship featuring a large and near flat saucer from above is like hitting a wall with a tennis ball. A lot of the particles are ought to return home.

Mike DiCenso
Security Officer
Posts: 5836
Joined: Fri Aug 18, 2006 8:49 pm

Re: Rehabilitating The Die is Cast

Post by Mike DiCenso » Thu Sep 22, 2016 3:31 am

You have a good point there, Mr O. We know from TNG's "Q Who?" and "The Nth Degree" that detonating a bunch of full yield torpedoes are more than enough to destroy an unshielded vessel from several km away and damage a shielded one.
-Mike

Post Reply