Notably, I went for a linear scaling of firepower. There's no proof that should be correct. There are many scales which don't.
However, scalings are there so they can have easily used. They have to be intuitive, and based on simple observations.
So even if it wasn't linear, it shouldn't rely on complex equations.
As for the gravimetric warhead, I assumed that it would be more powerful than a standard M/AM warhead, while not considering that the reaction is more productive than a M/AM reaction.
That's a mistake. On the same hand, we don't know how it works, nor do we know what makes the weapon so efficient.
I also assumed an AM warhead of 3 kg for comparative purposes, and estimated megatons yields based on an equal amount of AM. That said, it's relatively absurd. A warhead of 3 kg couldn't hold 3 kg of AM. So even if the gravimetric warhead was made of 100% explosive stuff, it could not release more energy than a similar weighted object which would theoretically be totally made of antimatter. That is an example, but it serves to show the maximum yield we can extrapolate here.
It's probable that the warhead was actually better at doing something very specific, notably destroying particles which also lie in and have an effect on subspace.
Globally, it seems obvious that the isoton scale couldn't be a simple transcription from a well known scale of firepower.
What puts me off is the idea that it's just so easy to come with a warhead which can bust planets, and that supposedly any UFP tech would know that.GStone wrote:Well, I think it's important to remember than in OD, they were using a gravimetric warhead. There might be different scalings for each warhead type. 54 isotons for a gravimetric warhead might destroy a planet, but a 54 MAM warhead wouldn't. Othere types, like suspace weapons (presumably some kind of 'subspace warhead') would have another scaling range.
My original idea of using 5^6 and supernovas gave me results I wasn't expecting. That borg mine might have a 'neutronic warhead', which would put 5^6 isotons close to, if not within, the range of supernova levels, but that would be for that specific warhead. Tricobalt devices are fired, like torps, but they are measured in cochranes, which is a measurement for subspace/warp fields, which makes sense, since they have been used to create subspace ruptures before.
Then, despite this knowledge, they utterly lack the ability to come with weapons of that power, and use it against their most powerful enemies.
Yet, it doesn't take much efforts for Voyager's techs to McGyver a photon torpedo, swap the M/AM warheads with gravimetric warheads, and apparently boost the initial 54 isotons yield (blows a planet up) to 80 isotons.
If a gravimetric weapon does not involve the use of reactions more efficient than a M/AM one, then the only way a charge of the same size of an antimatter warhead can have a superior yield, would be that an antimatter warhead actually contains a very small amount of antimatter, and that most of the mass is taken up by the system necessary to contain antimatter: the power source to create the artificial containment field, and all the hardware that goes with it, inside that small warhead (shield projector, control systems, sensors, etc).
On the other hand, a gravimetric warhead would be much more stable, but very specific, and thus wouldn't require that most of its mass is taken by systems meant to stabilize reactants, like it happens for an antimatter warhead.
Therefore, most of the weight of a gravimetric warhead could be about the reactants. Less powerful than antimatter, almost totally useless against armoured or shielded targets, but comes in higher quantities in a warhead of the same size.
I repeat: this would mean that an antimatter warhead contains very little antimatter.
Thus, if we associate the warhead seen in this picture to a yield of 6.5 isotons, and assume that this type of warhead only contains a fraction of 1 kg of AM, then we could reach a consensus where a 2 feet tall canister realtively full of enriched ultritum can provide a yield of 90 isotons.
Say that a 2 kg heavy M/AM warhead carries 5 grams of AM, 6.5 isotons would correspond to 21.48 megatons.
As suggested earlier on, the 54 isotons yield could also be obtained by using two gravimetric warheads, but it seems in the episode that they were reaching that yield with only one warhead. However, considering that a torpedo seems able to carry two warheads on each side, and since two panels were open, we can't really be sure, and we can't know either if the other M/AM was already removed.
No matter how you look at it, that 54 IT yield sits between 25, said to destroy a city within seconds, and the 200 IT heavy torps of Voyager, which are not meant to be powerful weapons, able to blow up a planet billion times.
I'll just repost other sources of references to the isoton unit.
From Memory Alpha:
Notes taken directly from the episodes, I suppose, so there's not much room for blatant misinterpretation.In 2373, Kilana had her Jem'Hadar troops fire ten isotons of explosives near a Jem'Hadar attack ship in which a team from Deep Space 9 was seeking shelter. (DS9: "The Ship")
In 2374, Captain Benjamin Sisko and his crew used ninety isotons of enriched ultritium to destroy a ketracel-white facility in Cardassian space. (DS9: "A Time to Stand")
90 isotons of enriched ultritium can take out anything within a 800 km range, including the white facility.
The script does not say it's meant to vapourize everything.
The targeted facility was on an asteroid not so big: 1, 2. On the second shot, there seems to be another ship hovering just a few meters above the surface of the asteroid, but I can't really tell if the ship is, instead, just simply behind that asteroid.
We see that the shield didn't extend that far away from the asteroid surface:
Here's a Jem'Hadar ship within the shield threshold: [url=http://ds9.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 39&pos=433]1.
The destruction sequence shows former explosions at different locations; First explosion: 1.
Second explosion: 1, 2.
They don't vapourize the base, nor even destroy most of the asteroid.
After that, there's that Alderaan-like pause, and the whole asteroid explodes while Sisko's crew's rushing away, in that borrowed Jem'Hadar ship.
The explosion sends huge debris flying away: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Here's the problem: Ultritium is "just" a tough explosive, and does not involve chain reactions, as far as I've seen. Having it enriched just makes it tougher.
There was only one canister filled with the enriched ultritium.
Of course, the multi small explosions make no sense here. They started at independant locations, and there's zero reason for such explosions to occur.
So the idea is that what destroyed the asteroid was the base's own power generator.
So the canister can only be responsible of the two following explosions: This one, or that one.
While the first explosion is the likely contender here, since I haven't seen the episode and been able to appreciate the pacing, maybe the second explosion kicks in so fast that we can suggest that the former explosion is only a side effect, a first glimpse of what's happening inside, due to the canister detonating: the base's own structure partially reduced the extent of the damage, thus the first and weaker explosion, but the reaction keeps releasing more energy.
Therefore, Sisko's 800 km range figure can only be an estimation of the amount of destruction caused by the explosion of the base's power source(s).
That is, anyway, what's always applied to the estimation of firepower of weapons used against artificial targets such as those.
Ten isotons of explosives are good to destroy a Jem'Hadar attack ship in a direct hit, which was used as a refuge by Sisko. Nearby explosions are used to threaten them, but they deliberately miss the crashed ship.
The Jem'Hadar were using ultritium concussion shells to bombard the zone around the crashed ship.
If 54 isotons is enough force to bust a planet, 10 isotons would be like blasting entire nations. We are obviously very, very far from that.
Of course, if the scale is non linear, then *maybe* it could work, but then you're stuck with Voyager's 32 torpedoes, 200 isotons each. 32 Super Death Stars.
Sure. :|
There's also that Borg device. Maybe it is that powerful, and possess that raw energy, but it's extremely likely, and strategically necessary, that it uses subspace to amplify range and reach over 5 light years. Otherwise, even nanoprobes travelling at near c would be futile in this case.
And trouble is that subspace is some funky stuff, and really, arguing about raw powers in this context is looking at the case through tintend glasses.
Globally, Trek is about technobabble, not raw yields. By making the raw yields more reasonable, and ignoring one instance of a character's babble which can be taken as hyperbole, we get a more or less good start for a satisfyingly consistent and reasonable scaling.
Simply put, weapons which have nothing to do with subspace, can be measured in isotons. So subspace is not a prerequisite either.
So here's an update of the scaling I previously suggested:
- 6.5 IT. Apparently the standard yield of a low yield tactical warhead, at the beginning of Voyager. Doesn't preclude the existence of heavier torps. Those low yield torps would be used for surgical strikes, localized destruction, and to avoid endangering the starship with its own firepower at close ranges.
- 10 IT. Jem Ha'dar ultritum concussion shells. Can destroy an unshielded and crashed Jem'Hadar ship in one blow. At nearby distances, they provoke intense shockwaves, but don't seem to cause widespread damage.
- 25 IT: The yield of a photon torpedo which can destroy an entire city within seconds.
- 54 IT: Obtained by using at least on gravimetric warhead, placed in the slot meant for a M/AM warhead. Its size is rather equal to a likely very low yield M/AM warhead. It should be less efficient than a M/AM reaction in ship to ship engagements, and thus extremely specific to certain operations. The gravimetric warhead appears to have a mass which is inferior to 3 kg, or even less, by looking at how one handles it with ease. They're lifting this warhead it like it wa a light weight plastic toy - which it is :) - and there's just no way this could even weight more than 2 or 3 kg.
If that object was made at 100% of antimatter - that's just to get an idea - then it would have a yield of 128.88 megatons, so we're looking at far less than that. 100 megatons would be a very generous figure, probably too high. 50 megatons would seem more reasonable. Remember that there's no essential reason why 1 isoton should be more than 4.184 PJ.
This is also enough to destroy one omega particle.
If we're talking about using fire against fire, as opposing yields of roughly equal value, then it should be interesting to see the level of destruction caused by one particle on the initial UFP research station 1, 2).
An extent of damage which would, at first glance, fit with the idea that "a single Omega molecule contains as much energy as a warp core". - 80 IT. Enough to destroy about 100 omega particles or less. How they would reach that yield while still using one single torpedo, I don't know. Maybe cram a secondary gravimetric warhead on the other side of the torp, or remove pointless stuff in the torp. Initially, a (Borg) mine would have been enough, so I guess shielding, engines and navicomputers are pointless.
A detonation of a number of these 100 molecules ravaged a portion of the surface of a moon, with "energy" emanating from the ruins of a grounded reeach station. - 90 IT. A canister contains 90 isotons of enriched ultritium. Able to cause a large explosion on the surface of small multi-kilometer wide asteroid. If the isoton scale is linear, in relation to energy measurements in joules, then based on the yield of the gravimetric warhead (54 IT), this would mean a yield of 166.66 megatons.
- 200 IT. The maximum yield of a Class-VI photon torpedo. Still using the same linear scale, a typical torpedo of that class would have a yield of 370.37 megatons, top. That could likely be a high end.
- 5e6 IT: Borg weapon, the multikinetic neutronic mine. Though not confirmed, the idea is that such a weapon could only be effective by using subspace to eventually amplify power and, above all, to increase range. The Bord were short on time and loosing against Species 8472. The theory would be that for a reason, the nanoprobes would be spread over 5 light years, through subspace, and that periodic, timed and triggered subspace anomalies would drop quantities of probes at given times, back in normal space. From there, their velocity in realspace wouldn't be relevant to measures in lightyears anymore.
The possible subspace side effects of the Borg mine would explain the claims about mass destruction over a star system. The very anomalies that would be used to drop packets of nanoprobes could also cause massive mayhem in the sections of space where they occur.
In terms of pure raw power, using the linear isoton scale I assumed, this would provide a yield of 9,259,259.26 megatons.
Pwah, right now, I'm just totally exhausted with that stuff, so I'll let you keep it going on for a moment.
