First off, the raw data:
1) The Eminians have not yet left their solar system, and, if they are not pre-warp, they do not make use of warp drive.SPOCK: We know very little about them. Their civilisation is advanced. They've had space flight for several centuries, but they've never ventured beyond their own solar system. When first contacted more than fifty years ago, Eminiar Seven was at war with its nearest neighbour.
KIRK: Anything else?
SPOCK: The Earth expedition making the report failed to return from its mission. The USS Valiant. Listed as missing in space.
2) The USS Valiant disappeared while exploring the Eminian system. It is likely that it was destroyed by crossfire between Eminiar and Vendikar.
3) The Eminians are engaged in a 500-year long interplanetary "lukewarm war."ANAN: We have been at war for five hundred years.
KIRK: You conceal it very well. Mister Spock?
SPOCK: Sir, we have completely scanned your planet. We find it highly advanced, prosperous in a material sense, comfortable for your people, and peaceful in the extreme. Yet you say you are at war. There is no evidence of this.
ANAN: Casualties among our civilian population total from one to three million dead each year from direct enemy attack. That is one reason, Captain, why we told you to stay away. As long as your ship is orbiting our planet, it is in severe danger.
SPOCK: With whom are you at war?
ANAN: The third planet in our system, called Vendikar. Originally settled by our people and now a ruthless enemy. Highly advanced technologically.
4) The delivery mechanism for these (currently simulated) weapons is a transporter-like device operating over interplanetary ranges. Oh, and Kirk is aware of this fact. So is Spock.KIRK: Mea, if this is an attack, may I ask what weapons the enemy is using?
MEA: Fusion bombs, materialised by the enemy over their targets.
This deserves a few quick comments. On the "Rehabilitating TDiC" thread, I was saying things like:
and:And somewhere in some base your scanners haven't detected yet - or one that your computers have mistakenly identified as a "low priority target" - there's a group of people that could be capable of mounting a counteroffensive. Maybe it's under a mountain. Maybe it's in the middle of nowhere, far from population centers. Maybe it's at the bottom of the ocean. Wherever it is, it has time to figure out a way to stop you. You can't give them that time, especially not if they're actively hostile to the Federation.
My point was this: "If General Order 24 is too slow, then the Eminians would have time to devise a way to attack the Enterprise before it could finish the job." But this isn't so, not because such a counterattack is unlikely, but because the Eminians don't need to come up with a way to hit the Enterprise - they could start beaming fusion bombs at the Enterprise using nothing but the infrastructure and weaponry they already have!Think of Stargate SG-1's version of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. It's only marginally higher-tech than our version, but it's a full kilometer under the mountain, and as long as it survives, the apocalypse can be canceled.
A base of a similar tech level only a few kilometers deeper still might not be completely safe from phaser assault, but it would certainly be difficult to detect, and (as before) would be capable of responding in kind to an orbital assault.
As a matter of fact, plausible mid-future range technology (ie, the kind that could be expected of a pre-warp, pre-force-field civilization) can produce some pretty impressive stuff. A civilization capable of waging an interplanetary war with weapons of mass destruction would be expected to have substantial ability to launch surface-to-orbit warheads (be it by rocket, Project Orion, Verne gun, mass-driver, laser launch, or combination thereof) in a fairly short period of time, significant military assets deep underground, and ludicrously powerful surface-to-orbit energy weapons. Interestingly, the last is without a doubt present on Eminar seven.
Sure enough, the Eminians destroyed the USS Valiant fifty years ago to comply with the treaty.SAR: Look, Anan. (another flare on another screen)
ANAN: Yes, I see it. They were warned.
SAR: Just as it happened fifty years ago.
ANAN: Alert a security detachment. They may be needed.
5) While the war is currently fought with simulated weapons, the societies are on the brink of fighting it for real. At any moment, Eminiar and Vendikar could start teleporting fusion bombs at each other across hundreds of millions of kilometers.MEA: Don't you see? If I refuse to report, and others refuse, then Vendikar would have no choice but to launch real weapons. We would have to do the same to defend ourselves. More than people would die then. A whole civilisation would be destroyed. Surely you can see that ours is a better way.
6) The Eminians have very powerful energy weapons defending their planet.SECURITY [OC]: The Federation prisoners have attacked their guard and escaped. They are armed. Disintegration station number twelve destroyed, Councilman, apparently by disruptor fire.
ANAN: All security personnel, Federation prisoners have escaped. They are to be found. They are armed. If they resist, do what is necessary. Planetary disruptor banks, calculate orbit of star cruiser now circling. Stand by to fire. Full power.
SECURITY [OC]: Councilman, planetary disruptor banks locked onto target. Standing by.
ANAN: In ten seconds, open fire. Destroy the star cruiser. Those are the orders of the Council.
7) The Enterprise can "handle" the planet if it has to. Wonderful bit of foreshadowing, that. Note that McCoy has no reason to exaggerate the capabilities of the Enterprise to Scotty, so this places the proposition that General Order 24 is a bluff in doubt.MCCOY: Well, I guess that answers our questions, Mister Scott. They're not very friendly, are they?
SCOTT: Aye, but what about our Captain and the landing party down there somewhere?
MCCOY: We get them out.
SCOTT: If they're alive, and if we can find them. That's a big planet.
MCCOY: Not too big for the Enterprise to handle if it has to.
SCOTT: We can't fire full phasers with our screens up, and We can't lower our screens with their disruptors on us. Of course I could treat them to a few dozen photon torpedoes.
8) At the time of this episode, the Enterprise cannot fire its phasers at full power while its shields/screens are up.
9) The Enterprise can, however, fire photon torpedoes through its screens.
10) Anan's impression of the Enterprise's capabilities are in line with McCoy's.KIRK: I'm not interested in discussing our differences. You don't seem to realise the risk you're taking. We don't make war with computers and herd the casualties into suicide stations. We make the real thing, Councilman. I could destroy this planet.
ANAN: Why do you think I don't let you talk to your ship ?
11) Spock expects phaser fire from the Enterprise to be useful.SPOCK: Orbit out to maximum phaser range and stand by for further orders. Spock out.
I'm going to quote the next exchange at length, as it is where the order is delivered, and it contains several tactically relevant facts.
12) The Enterprise's phasers outrange the Eminian disruptors.KIRK: Oh, no. You were quite accurate. I plan to prove it to you. ANAN: Open a channel to the Enterprise. You give me no choice, Captain. We are not bandits, but you force us to act as bandits.
SCOTT [OC]: This is the USS Enterprise.
KIRK: Scotty, General Order Twenty Four. Two hours! In two hours!
ANAN: Enterprise, this is Anan Seven, First Councilman of the High Council of Eminiar.
[Bridge]
ANAN [OC]: We hold your Captain, his party, your Ambassador and his party prisoners.
[Council Room]
ANAN: Unless you immediately start transportation of all personnel aboard your ship to the surface, the hostages will be killed. You have thirty minutes. I mean it, Captain.
KIRK: All that it means is that I won't be around for the destruction. You heard me give General Order Twenty Four. That means in two hours the Enterprise will destroy Eminiar Seven.
ANAN: Planetary defence System, open fire on the Enterprise!
SECURITY [OC]: I'm sorry, Councilman. The target has moved out of range.
ANAN: You wouldn't do this. Hundreds of millions of people.
KIRK: I didn't start it, Councilman, but I'm liable to finish it.
(Meanwhile Spock and his group are moving through the corridors. Fox's aide gets injured in one weapons exchange so they leave him behind.)
SAR: Councilman, I received a message from Vendikar. Our time is nearly up. Our quota is short by several thousand. They accuse us of reneging on the treaty.
ANAN: You see? It's started.
KIRK: You're wrong. It hasn't begun.
SECURITY [OC]: Councilman, Disintegrator station eleven has been destroyed. Guard positions in tunnels eight and ten fail to answer. Earth party reported seen in corridor 4A.
KIRK: You have less than two hours, Councilman.
ANAN: What I want or don't want has nothing to do with it. Escalation is automatic. You can stop it!
KIRK: Stop it? I'm counting on it.
[Bridge]
SCOTT: Open a channel, Lieutenant. This is the commander of the USS Enterprise.
[Council Room]
SCOTT [OC]: All cities and installations on Eminiar Seven have been located, identified, and fed into our fire-control system. In one hour and forty five minutes
[Bridge]
SCOTT: The entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed.
[Council Room]
SCOTT: You have that long to surrender your hostages.
ANAN: What can I do? Somebody, please tell me.
13) There are hundreds of millions of people on Eminiar 7.
14) Scotty, having heard nothing more than "General order twenty-four in two hours," knows exactly what to do. This indicates that, if General Order 24 is a bluff, it is a codified, pre-arranged bluff. This seems rather unlikely, especially since everybody on both sides already seems to think that the Enterprise can do something along these lines anyways.
15) Scotty expects the entire inhabited surface of the planet to be destroyed, every city and installation wiped off the map, if he has to carry out the order.
16) Despite having the ability to spam fusion bombs across interplanetary distances, Anan believes that there is nothing he can do to stop the Enterprise.
Now, from 4, we can get:
17) Kirk also believes, despite knowing that Eminiar 7 can spam fusion bombs across interplanetary distances, that the Enterprise can still totally devastate the planet.
18) The Enterprise cannot lower its screens as long as the Eminians can still beam fusion bombs at it.
From 8 and 18 we get:
19) The Enterprise cannot fire its phasers at full power until the Eminian war machine has been neutered.
From 11 and 19 we get:
20) Spock expects the Enterprise to be able to neuter the Eminian war machine without being able to fire its phasers at full power.
From 9, 18, and 20 we get:
21) Spock expects the Enterprise to be able to neuter the Eminian war machine using primarily or exclusively its torpedoes.
And finally, from the fact that Spock has a very good idea of the Enterprise's capabilities, we can infer:
22) The Enterprise can neuter the Eminian war machine using primarily or exclusively its torpedoes.
This is a very different thing from the typical interpretation of General Order 24 as the capacity of a Constitution Class Starship to wipe out civilization on a pre-warp planet. As a matter of fact, General Order 24 entails that a Constitution Class Starship is capable of wiping out civilization on a planet locked in an interplanetary war! That is a very different thing, and a far more difficult thing.
Unfortunately, it is also a difficult thing to quantify. But we have a reasonable proxy in the United States at the height of the Cold War. In the 1970's, the U.S. relied on three separate nuclear weapons platforms: the B-52 bomber, the Minuteman missile, and the affectionately-named fleet of ballistic missile submarines known as the "Forty-One for Freedom."
Currently, we have two naval bases where subs are stationed, five-ish points where subs are patrolling at any given time, two or three USAF bases where B-52's can be launched from, and about 450 Minuteman silos in three missile fields, with each silo 4-5 miles away from its neighbors. In the 1970's, we had about 1000 silos. I'm not sure what the figures would be for any of the other factors at the time, but going with the current figures can't hurt.
So, we have 100 photon torpedoes, and we're going to use them to disable the United States' capability to launch nuclear weapons in 1974. We're going to hit three USAF bases, five subs, and two USN bases, in addition to the missile fields. It'll take ten torps to neutralize the subs and planes, so we have 90 torpedoes left to neutralize 1000 hardened bunkers. The fact that we can do it is to be taken as a given. The question is how big our torpedoes are going to have to be.
We can get an idea from some of the equations in here.
LR = 460(Y/H)^(1/3)
Where LR is lethal radius in meters, Y is yield in megatons, and H is the hardness of the target in thousands of PSI. A suggested value for H is 2 kpsi for American missile silos. We will assume that is the case. Now we need to figure out LR.
If we assume that the silos are separated from one another by ~6 km. Then we can treat each silo as corresponding to a circle of 3 km radius. That's an area of 28.3 square kilometers. Since we have a thousand silos to blast, we have a total area of some 28,300 square kilometers. Each of our 90 photon torpedoes has to cover an area of 314 square kilometers, or a circle with radius 10 km.
We can rewrite the above equation as follows:
Y = H * (LR/460)^3
With H = 2 kpsi and LR = 10,000 m, Y = 20,547.38226 megatons.
Each of our torpedoes has to have a yield of 20 gigatons!
If we go with the current stockpile of 450 missile silos, H = 2 kpsi and LR = 6700 m, which gives Y = 6,179.892332 megatons.
Disarming America today would entail the use of 6 gigaton torpedoes. And that's for taking out the WMD capability of a modern superpower! A superpower capable of projecting their weapons over interplanetary distances would be orders of magnitude more difficult to disarm.
The biggest vulnerability of an ICBM is that its silo has to open to the air. The Eminians can beam their bombs to Vendikar, so their bomb storage areas can be far deeper underground - and (more importantly) far better disguised. While bombers are unlikely due to the technology available, if submarines can be fitted with suitable transporter units, we can be confident that they will be employed. If there is any concern at all about a counterforce strike from Vendikar, we can safely assume that the number, variety, and hardness of bomb-beaming platforms employed by the Eminians vastly exceed anything even contemplated during our cold war.
In any event, if multiple hardened targets separated by distances on the order of several kilometers have to be destroyed by each torpedo, there is no possible way to avoid TOS torpedo yields well into the gigatons.