Starfleet Jedi

Praeothmin wrote:Kor, you ignore the fact that the upgraded Lakota did much damage to the Defiant, and had they been both fighting "balls-to-walls", both would have taken heavy damage, since even Quantorps that fail to hit critical systems would have done much damage to the Defiant.

We all agree the Defiant would win, but it would not dominate like you seem to think.
Do not forget the warships the Defiant fought were Cardassians (not the most powerful ships, and not the most precise), Klingons (BoP are not very powerful, and one on one, a Vorch'a is less powerful than a GCS, and also not as precise), and mostly?
None of them had QuanTorps...

The Lakota got off at least 6 full powered phaser shots if not more on the Defiants shields before the Defiant started fighting back and even with that head start it was only one shot away from being destroyed while the defiant was not great but in better shape by the end of the fight.

The Defiant raped jem'hadar attack fighters as well as breen warships and the scaling of the breen ships showed dimensions that were overall larger than the Excelsior class, and they were obviously dedicated warships.


The defiant has 4 rapid firing Quantum torpedo launchers and 4 forward Phaser cannons that are by far the most powerful ship board phaser type available.

The Lakota has 2 forward phaser arrays that at best had been upgraded from the standard type 8's Excelsior class have to type 10's like those on the E-D and it has 2 forward torp launchers that were upgraded to fire quantum's.

We know that the firepower of type 10 phasers did damage jem'hadar attack ships but had to be focused and fire for some time to destroy one (DS9: Jem'Hadar). Considering the rate of fire for the Lakota and its amount of phaser banks and launchers i am not sure how much damage one or two Quantum torps and a phaser burst or two from them would do to the Defiant while its ablative armour was undamaged and at full or high shields, especially if it had its forward shields reinforced.

While the Defiants Phaser canons can totally destroy a jem'hadar attack fighter with just a few pulses. 4 Quantum torpedoes fired from the defiant were enough to totally trash and rip in half a undamaged and fully shielded Breen warship that has slightly larger overall dimensions than a Excelsior class ship.

So while it is clear that a full powered continuous volley from the defiant's phasers coupled with at least 4 quantum torpedoes would likely destroy the Lakota or at the very least damage it to a point of uselessness. I am not sure if the volley from the Lakota of 1-2 quantum's and at most 1-2 phaser shots would do significant damage if any to the defiant apart from its shields obviously.

Obviously i am assuming that they both get a full volley off each as they approach and that each volley hits the target.

I'll try to look at that fight again, but once more, you are underestimating the Lakota.
You assume Type-8 Phasers to Type-10, while it could have received the Type-12, like the Prometheus and the Sovereign.
You also assume the maximum Torpedoes it could fire in a volley is 2, while it could have the same burst capability of the GCS, or the Sovereign...
We've never seen the Defiant fire both QTs and Pulse Phasers at the same time, so we have to assume it cannot for some reason, perhaps they both run of the same power couplings, and these power couplings cannot handle the stress of both Weapon Systems firing at the same time...
You take one example where Phasers have issues with Dominion ships, and ignore all other battles where Phasers from ships like standard Excelsiors do heavy damage to warships, or where Type-10 Phasers on the GCS disable Keldons in two shots...
And these Breen ships have never shown resilience comparable to Federation ships, so the point is moot...

Praeothmin wrote:I'll try to look at that fight again, but once more, you are underestimating the Lakota.
You assume Type-8 Phasers to Type-10, while it could have received the Type-12, like the Prometheus and the Sovereign.

The only reason those ships could handle Type-12 phasers was because they had the new warp cores that allowed them to power weapons of that sort.

Not only that but the Prometheus was not launched until 50749.5 and the E-E was launched on stardate 49827.5 and the "Paradise Lost" episode was 49170.65 so earlier than the E-E launch by a large margin if you also include the fact that the Lakota had been refitted some time before the episode.

You also assume the maximum Torpedoes it could fire in a volley is 2, while it could have the same burst capability of the GCS, or the Sovereign...

If it had that burst capacity along with the Type-12 phasers it would match the firepower of the Sov so i doubt it.

We've never seen the Defiant fire both QTs and Pulse Phasers at the same time, so we have to assume it cannot for some reason, perhaps they both run of the same power couplings, and these power couplings cannot handle the stress of both Weapon Systems firing at the same time...

Apart from hitting the torps as they launch i do not see why they could not as torps do not require much energy to fire and other starfleet vessels can do it, but even if it fired its torps and instantly switched to continuous fire phasers i do not see how the Lakota could tank that sort of offensive firepower. After all the Defiant has never needed to fire that sort of firepower at any type of opposing ship during the entire dominion war, phasers or torps have been enough to destroy all opposition in the past.

You take one example where Phasers have issues with Dominion ships, and ignore all other battles where Phasers from ships like standard Excelsiors do heavy damage to warships, or where Type-10 Phasers on the GCS disable Keldons in two shots...

Hey none of that, you said the cardi ships sucked earlier when i mentioned the defiant kicking their asses, not only that but in the episode "defiant" tom riker points out that 3 Keldons would be a short fight for the defiant, kira points out it would still take time and the 10 ships chasing them would catch up and that was too many for even the defiant.

I would not bet on the Lakota refit winning against 3 Keldons tbh let alone consider it a easy fight.

And these Breen ships have never shown resilience comparable to Federation ships, so the point is moot...

No way dude Breen ships are tough, sisko and crew are all impressed how tough jem'hadar attack ships are (DS:The ship) but the Defiant can destroy them in 3 pulses from its phasers, but when it fired its phasers on a Breen ship it hit it with a minimum of 10 pulses and while the Breen ship took damage it was still able to fire back with its energy dampening weapon (DS9:Changing face of evil).

I see a couple of problems here.

One. The Defiant goes around popping Jem'Hadar fighters yes, even as far back as "The Die is Cast." Problem is, so does the Rotarran. Now, given that it was Martok's personal flagship, we might assume something was special about the Rotarran, though I can't recall anything being mentioned. Also, the canonically weak Galor-class destroyers can pop them as well, as we see them doing in "What You Leave Behind." They're attacking them from behind, which we know to be a weak vector for them (as per "Treachery, Faith and the Great River," where even a Runabout can destroy one if it hits the right spot). So, we can chalk up the Galor and Runabout examples to them attacking weak spots. One would expect that, as an attack ship, the Jem'Hadar fighters are more heavily armored in their front regions, making the Defiant's swatting them aside in "The Die is Cast" all the more impressive (which would also go well with "The Ship," since the Jem'Hadar vessel crashed in face-first). However, the Rotarran also destroys one with only six (three per side) disruptor hits in "Call to Arms," and it was facing the Rotarran. And Martok appeared quite confident he could handle the others as well, and apparently he does since the Defiant is not attacked again. Both the Rotarran and the Defiant have an easy time of it in "Favor the Bold," both attacking the Jem'Hadar fighters from behind.

Now, how does all this figure against the example from "The Jem'Hadar." We can conclude that a) the Federation was simply not prepared for what they would encounter and b) the Jem'Hadar, who at this point still had the decisive advantage of being able to shoot through Federation shields, dealt critical damage to the Odyssey with the opening salvo. We in fact know this to be the case, as the first thing they hit is the port nacelle. Not long after, Captain Keogh states that they've lost power to phasers. If anything, the Odyssey never performed to anywhere near her full abilities, thanks to the Jem'Hadar's phased polaron beams tearing right through the shields, something that wasn't remedied until two years later in "Call to Arms."

What this tells us is that the Jem'Hadar fighter is not a tremendously strong ship, it simply had a tremendously strong advantage in being able to effortlessly penetrate Federation shields. When that advantage was lost, the Jem'Hadar fighter posed less of a threat to most ship classes in Season Six, where in one case they even eschew fighting in favor of suicide runs ("Tears of the Prophets").

Two. The Breen. In my view, the Dominion turned to them more for the advantage the energy-dampener would bestow. Having more ships would be a help, of course, but the energy-dampener was the key reason for the alliance with the Breen, an advantage the Dominion desperately wanted, which is why they were willing to antagonize the Cardassians with the concessions they made to the Breen. The Breen ships seem only marginally more resilient than Jem'Hadar fighters. Remember "Valiant" and "The Siege of AR-558," where the Valiant and the Defiant, respectively, destroy a Jem'Hadar fighter with six(!) quantum torpedoes? Those same ships then get blown up with ease in every other instance. The same is true for the Breen, whose ships get destroyed with ease once the Cardassian fleet turns on the Dominion in "What You Leave Behind."

And consider, in their attack on Starfleet Command in "The Changing Face of Evil" Sisko states that Starfleet was able to destroy most of the attacking force. Given that Starfleet hadn't expected the attack, we must question whether or not all of the attacking force would have been destroyed if Starfleet had known. Certainly Starfleet's Earth defense fleet would not have been comprised exclusively of Defiant class ships (hell, for all we know, the Lakota itself could still be stationed at Earth).

The point of all this is that while the Defiant can indeed destroy certain vessels with ease, we've seen other, weaker classes of ships do the same. The fact that the Defiant can easily destroy Jem'Hadar fighters cannot, in and of itself, be considered conclusive evidence that the Defiant would easily destroy the Lakota, a vessel we don't know the full abilities of. Indeed, if the Lakota's arrays are Type 10, she has at least 11 of those, as per both the model and the episode. We see five on top of the saucer and five below, and there's one on the pod between the nacelle pylons, in addition to her torpedo launchers. That's a lot of firepower. There's also no reason to think she couldn't mount Type 12s with a little help from some industrious engineers, since phasers can be used even in the absence of a warpcore. ("Cathexis," Star Trek: Insurrection).

Cocytus wrote:I see a couple of problems here.

One. The Defiant goes around popping Jem'Hadar fighters yes, even as far back as "The Die is Cast." Problem is, so does the Rotarran. Now, given that it was Martok's personal flagship, we might assume something was special about the Rotarran, though I can't recall anything being mentioned. Also, the canonically weak Galor-class destroyers can pop them as well, as we see them doing in "What You Leave Behind."


They're attacking them from behind, which we know to be a weak vector for them (as per "Treachery, Faith and the Great River," where even a Runabout can destroy one if it hits the right spot). So, we can chalk up the Galor and Runabout examples to them attacking weak spots.

One would expect that, as an attack ship, the Jem'Hadar fighters are more heavily armored in their front regions, making the Defiant's swatting them aside in "The Die is Cast" all the more impressive (which would also go well with "The Ship," since the Jem'Hadar vessel crashed in face-first). However, the Rotarran also destroys one with only six (three per side) disruptor hits in "Call to Arms," and it was facing the Rotarran. And Martok appeared quite confident he could handle the others as well, and apparently he does since the Defiant is not attacked again. Both the Rotarran and the Defiant have an easy time of it in "Favor the Bold," both attacking the Jem'Hadar fighters from behind.

The Rotarran required at least 10 volleys to destroy a jem attack ship in "sons and daughters" and it was already damaged. Martok also transfers all auxiluary power to the disruptors removes the overload suppressors on the rotarans disruptors. They also focused their attacks on the damaged nacelle on the second ship to destroy it and that also took 7 volleys or more, the rotarran was also attacking from behind these ships.

It was certainly a close fight with the Rotaran taking some damage from the three attack fighters but it was more due to manouverability and tactics than firepower that they won.

Now, how does all this figure against the example from "The Jem'Hadar." We can conclude that a) the Federation was simply not prepared for what they would encounter and b) the Jem'Hadar, who at this point still had the decisive advantage of being able to shoot through Federation shields, dealt critical damage to the Odyssey with the opening salvo. We in fact know this to be the case, as the first thing they hit is the port nacelle. Not long after, Captain Keogh states that they've lost power to phasers. If anything, the Odyssey never performed to anywhere near her full abilities, thanks to the Jem'Hadar's phased polaron beams tearing right through the shields, something that wasn't remedied until two years later in "Call to Arms."

What this tells us is that the Jem'Hadar fighter is not a tremendously strong ship, it simply had a tremendously strong advantage in being able to effortlessly penetrate Federation shields. When that advantage was lost, the Jem'Hadar fighter posed less of a threat to most ship classes in Season Six, where in one case they even eschew fighting in favor of suicide runs ("Tears of the Prophets").

Actually while you are right about the nacelle the captain does not mention losing power to the weapons, in fact as the shields are useless one of the first things he actually does is to transfer shield power to the weapons, a boost in weapons power that we have yet to see any other captain give as far as im aware.

The oddesy loses phaser power right after sisko is rescued so right at the end of the fight actually.

The rammed bops and vor'cha class in tears of the prophets so for a few attack ships they inflicted heavy losses on the klingons.

Two. The Breen. In my view, the Dominion turned to them more for the advantage the energy-dampener would bestow. Having more ships would be a help, of course, but the energy-dampener was the key reason for the alliance with the Breen, an advantage the Dominion desperately wanted, which is why they were willing to antagonize the Cardassians with the concessions they made to the Breen. The Breen ships seem only marginally more resilient than Jem'Hadar fighters. Remember "Valiant" and "The Siege of AR-558," where the Valiant and the Defiant, respectively, destroy a Jem'Hadar fighter with six(!) quantum torpedoes? Those same ships then get blown up with ease in every other instance. The same is true for the Breen, whose ships get destroyed with ease once the Cardassian fleet turns on the Dominion in "What You Leave Behind."

The AR-558/valiant scenes were oddities although they could be a example of a jem fighter with every last drop of available power transfered to shields ect and staying alive.

Even "what you leave behind" is not a good example as the cardassians change sides late in the battle so the breen ships they are firing on could have low or no shields to speak of and even may have taken structural damage for all we know.

And consider, in their attack on Starfleet Command in "The Changing Face of Evil" Sisko states that Starfleet was able to destroy most of the attacking force. Given that Starfleet hadn't expected the attack, we must question whether or not all of the attacking force would have been destroyed if Starfleet had known. Certainly Starfleet's Earth defense fleet would not have been comprised exclusively of Defiant class ships (hell, for all we know, the Lakota itself could still be stationed at Earth).

The breen ships must have died quickly or they would havev done considerably more damage than seen on screen, although we have no numbers on how many were involved and it is mentioned that a few survived.

I am not sure "The Changing Face of Evil" is a good example to show anything really in regards to firepower or toughness.

The point of all this is that while the Defiant can indeed destroy certain vessels with ease, we've seen other, weaker classes of ships do the same. The fact that the Defiant can easily destroy Jem'Hadar fighters cannot, in and of itself, be considered conclusive evidence that the Defiant would easily destroy the Lakota, a vessel we don't know the full abilities of. Indeed, if the Lakota's arrays are Type 10, she has at least 11 of those, as per both the model and the episode. We see five on top of the saucer and five below, and there's one on the pod between the nacelle pylons, in addition to her torpedo launchers. That's a lot of firepower.

Having that many phasers and being capable of firing them all at the same time is another thing all together, they have so many to cover the firing arcs around the ship.

There's also no reason to think she couldn't mount Type 12s with a little help from some industrious engineers, since phasers can be used even in the absence of a warpcore. ("Cathexis," Star Trek: Insurrection).

The E-E fires 2 low powered shots against a unshielded ship to disable engines and life support in insurection after it has no warp core.

Mr. Oragahn wrote: Is that the same dish that was running with terawatts of power, as per Riker?
A beam is still a beam though. The only difference it would make is if the Borg knew about it and, for example, put all or most of their shields over the area which they knew would be hit, because of the way the beam is fired: straight forward.

I believe it was stated that they could channel all the power from the warp core through the main defector dish, and the warp core can without blowing up put out at a low end 12.75 billion gigawatts.

Is it possible Riker actually does not know what the ship can do?

I suggest we break this into another Defiant/Bug thread. This thread is about the Borg.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:I suggest we break this into another Defiant/Bug thread. This thread is about the Borg.

Yea sorry dude i was not trying to hijack it.

Yeah, and anyway, looking at the fight, the first hit from the Lakota brings th Defiant's shields down to 60%.
In this video, when the Defiant passes over the Lakota and fires, the pulse Phasers barely interacts with the shield, and does not create any explosions.
If these weapons were as powerful as you say, Kor, then we should have seen the Lakota's shields drop immediately from that barrage (I counted at least 7 "quadruple" shots)...

And when Benteen talks to the Admiral, the bridge of her ship seems in good enough shape, and Sisko mentions that if she uses the QTs, she'd be killing 50 people, not "risk killing", "could kill", "might possibly if you win kill", so there was a very real possibility that the Defiant could be destroyed as well.
So no, the Defiant would not pawn the Lakota, and if it won, it would pay the price for its victory...

Praeothmin wrote:Yeah, and anyway, looking at the fight, the first hit from the Lakota brings th Defiant's shields down to 60%.
In this video, when the Defiant passes over the Lakota and fires, the pulse Phasers barely interacts with the shield, and does not create any explosions.
If these weapons were as powerful as you say, Kor, then we should have seen the Lakota's shields drop immediately from that barrage (I counted at least 7 "quadruple" shots)...

And when Benteen talks to the Admiral, the bridge of her ship seems in good enough shape, and Sisko mentions that if she uses the QTs, she'd be killing 50 people, not "risk killing", "could kill", "might possibly if you win kill", so there was a very real possibility that the Defiant could be destroyed as well.
So no, the Defiant would not pawn the Lakota, and if it won, it would pay the price for its victory...

The Defiant was not trying to destroy the Lakota it was trying to disable it and avoid killing anybody on it.



If you look at the 7 shot burst the defiant fired most of the frigging shots actually missed and flew past the Lakota cos the defiant decided to do a roll right when it fired. So ALL the shots from the left two pulse emitters missed the Lakota and i would say roughly 20-30% of the pulses from the right two emitters missed.

Also at around 1:57 when the Defiant is above the Lakota firing down the Lakotas shields are gone (no shield interaction in fact some shots pass right through the area between the saucer and nacelles).

The defiant got hit by at least 15 phaser shots from the Lakota in the scene and the last one we see has shield interaction so its shields were still up.

So lets compare:-

One burst of 7 pulses of whitch 60-70% actually missed and a single torpedo to drop the Lakotas shields. That would be reasonably consistant with Defiant fire power considering it means 20%-40% (equivalant of 2-3 phaser shots) hit the Lakota and a single torp to drop its shields.

15 shots (that all hit) from the Lakota are unable to drop the Defiants shields.

Pulse phasers like the defiants are considered very powerful but also very innacurate in regards to targetting sub-systems that is why starfleet never used them in the TNG era up until the defiant was built to fight the borg. It makes them a great weapon for war but for a fight where you wanna no or low casualties and just disable they are a poor chioce compared to a beam weapon.

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:The Rotarran required at least 10 volleys to destroy a jem attack ship in "sons and daughters" and it was already damaged. Martok also transfers all auxiluary power to the disruptors removes the overload suppressors on the rotarans disruptors. They also focused their attacks on the damaged nacelle on the second ship to destroy it and that also took 7 volleys or more, the rotarran was also attacking from behind these ships.

It was certainly a close fight with the Rotaran taking some damage from the three attack fighters but it was more due to manouverability and tactics than firepower that they won.

None of which invalidates the other examples.

In fact this:

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:they could be a example of a jem fighter with every last drop of available power transfered to shields ect and staying alive.

would explain the "Sons and Daughters" example perfectly. The Dominion wanted to destroy that convoy, and the ships they sent were diverting all available power to their shields to survive as long as possible.

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:The E-E fires 2 low powered shots against a unshielded ship to disable engines and life support in insurection after it has no warp core.

There are other examples. I screwed up in my last post. The Voyager example I meant to give was "Day of Honor," not "Cathexis." Voyager maintains shields without the core in "Cathexis," but "Day of Honor" shows us Voyager ready to fight off 27 Cataati vessels with a fully charged weapons systems in spite of having no core. Given that Voyager is less advanced, less powerful and smaller than the E-E, we should expect the E-E to be able to maintain weapons and shields just fine without the core. In fact, Nemesis shows us just that. The core goes offline, and she fights the Scimitar.

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:Also at around 1:57 when the Defiant is above the Lakota firing down the Lakotas shields are gone (no shield interaction in fact some shots pass right through the area between the saucer and nacelles).

I'm watching the same video. Each pulse from the Defiant is terminated by a bright flash. The Lakota's shields are still there.

Cocytus wrote:
In fact this:

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:they could be a example of a jem fighter with every last drop of available power transfered to shields ect and staying alive.

would explain the "Sons and Daughters" example perfectly. The Dominion wanted to destroy that convoy, and the ships they sent were diverting all available power to their shields to survive as long as possible.

So instead of the (at least 3 jem'hadar fighters) flying in and melting mere transports they chose to dial down their weapons, boost shields and fight a bop instead?. Also the one with the damaged nacelles shields were down to 20% before they fired at it with boosted weapons ect and it still took 7 volleys to destroy.

There are other examples. I screwed up in my last post. The Voyager example I meant to give was "Day of Honor," not "Cathexis." Voyager maintains shields without the core in "Cathexis," but "Day of Honor" shows us Voyager ready to fight off 27 Cataati vessels with a fully charged weapons systems in spite of having no core. Given that Voyager is less advanced, less powerful and smaller than the E-E, we should expect the E-E to be able to maintain weapons and shields just fine without the core. In fact, Nemesis shows us just that. The core goes offline, and she fights the Scimitar.

Type 12 phasers were planetary defese phasers and up until around the E-E and Prometheus time of construction warp cores were not powerful enough to make them worth fitting on starships. In nemissis they say that the the scimitar had taken out the warp drive not the warp core and they also mention in the fight that phaser power was gimped down to 4%.

They also seem to use the phasers to locate the ship so they can fire torps at it more than use them for damaging it and even when they do hit it they do minimal damage (much to Worfs chagrin).

Oh and Voyager did not have type 12 phasers it had type 10.

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote: I'm watching the same video. Each pulse from the Defiant is terminated by a bright flash. The Lakota's shields are still there.

I downloaded a better version than the one on youtube and you are right, sorry about that i was looking at a rather crappy version.

Still the point about the Defiants phasers being a sawn off shot gun rather than a scalpel remains as do the initial misses and the 15 hits from the Lakota without losing shields.

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:So instead of the (at least 3 jem'hadar fighters) flying in and melting mere transports they chose to dial down their weapons, boost shields and fight a bop instead?. Also the one with the damaged nacelles shields were down to 20% before they fired at it with boosted weapons ect and it still took 7 volleys to destroy.

You're right, that doesn't make much sense.

But in any event, the fact remains that the Defiant's ability to destroy Jem'Hadar fighters with ease is not unique nor conclusive evidence it would easily destroy the Lakota.

Just to make a sort of devil's-advocate counterexample, look at the Chin'Toka battle from "Tears of the Prophets." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQKzZU0YViE

In the initial stages, before the platforms are even powered, an undamaged, fully powered Defiant takes 8 volleys of pulse phaser fire to destroy a platform (which also took a hit from a Warbird). In the same sequence, a standard Excelsior destroys a platform with two shots. After the moon generator is destroyed, an unmodified, not-up-to-Lakota specs, possibly damaged Excelsior class fires two shots at a platform. The first is blocked by the shields right before they fail, the second destroys it. This example makes the Defiant seem dispropotionately weak alongside the Excelsior, even though we know it isn't. Your "sawn off shotgon" analogy would work here. The Excelsiors were simply targeting and setting off the onboard plasma torpedoes. However, even with that analogy we're still pitting the Defian's sawn-off shotgun against the Lakota's more precise scalpel, (or more accurately, pitting a sawn-off shotgun against a high-powered rifle). That isn't an automatic win for the Defiant.

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:In nemissis they say that the the scimitar had taken out the warp drive not the warp core and they also mention in the fight that phaser power was gimped down to 4%.

How do you interpret what is happening here? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-_4RG0XrcA It looks to me like the warpcore is going offline. The core sparks, then the M/AM streams sputter, then we hear the ominous diminuendo hum that signals a power loss. Immediately prior to that we see the Scimitar land a hit first on the Engineering Section, then the port nacelle. Either one of those could have disabled the warp drive, but we're shown a clear view of the core itself being damaged. Shinzon's initial salvo, right after Picard orders evasive maneuvers, shows at least 7 disruptor hits we can see (as 12 we can infer, given the rate of fire) to the main body of the ship, at least two of which hit the Engineering Section. Shinzon doesn't appear to be targeting the nacelles much. This whole sequence makes it clear to me that the problem with the warp drive is the core itself, not any of the other systems that make it up (like interrupted plasma flow, inability to form warp field, inoperable nacelle, etc).

And the phaser banks were reduced to 4% as a result of the prolonged fight, which indicates to me that the phasers can be supplemented only to a point. They can be fully charged by means other than the warp core, but their combat effectiveness diminishes more quickly. Data specifically states that "phaser banks are down to 4%," impying they weren't at 4% when the battle started, and were reduced to 4% as a result of the combat.

Kor_Dahar_Master wrote:Still the point about the Defiants phasers being a sawn off shot gun rather than a scalpel remains as do the initial misses and the 15 hits from the Lakota without losing shields.

None of that is in dispute. The hits from the Lakota did reduce the Defiant's shields to almost nothing, however. Dax states that "shields are almost gone." The Lakota came off worse in the exchange, and would have been defeated had the fight continued. That is not in doubt. You posit that, given that the Defiant was not fighting to her full potential, she would have easily defeated the Lakota had she done so. However, that same argument works against you since the Lakota herself was not fighting to her full potential, as per Captain Benteen: "My orders were to disable the Defiant, not destroy her."

Neither vessel was using its full abilities. Had both done so, the Defiant still would have one, but the margin would still have been close.

Edit: Won, not one.

Since Cocytus adressed the fact the Lakota wasn't trying to destroy the Defiant either, then all I have to add is that the half of the first Defiant volley that hit the Lakota, plus the 7 others, that did not take down her shields completely, shows that the Lakota is powerful, and the fight would certainly not have been as one-sided as Kor says...

Cocytus wrote:

Just to make a sort of devil's-advocate counterexample, look at the Chin'Toka battle from "Tears of the Prophets." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQKzZU0YViE

In the initial stages, before the platforms are even powered, an undamaged, fully powered Defiant takes 8 volleys of pulse phaser fire to destroy a platform (which also took a hit from a Warbird). In the same sequence, a standard Excelsior destroys a platform with two shots. After the moon generator is destroyed, an unmodified, not-up-to-Lakota specs, possibly damaged Excelsior class fires two shots at a platform. The first is blocked by the shields right before they fail, the second destroys it. This example makes the Defiant seem dispropotionately weak alongside the Excelsior, even though we know it isn't. Your "sawn off shotgon" analogy would work here. The Excelsiors were simply targeting and setting off the onboard plasma torpedoes. However, even with that analogy we're still pitting the Defian's sawn-off shotgun against the Lakota's more precise scalpel, (or more accurately, pitting a sawn-off shotgun against a high-powered rifle). That isn't an automatic win for the Defiant.

It is also counter to earlier examples in the same fight prior to the shields being raised as a Excelsior class needs to shots to destroy a platform that had been passed by several ships already and going by the scene they would have shot at it as well on the way by because as the scene starts we see a lot of ships firing but only one or i think two platforms destroyed and the one the Excelsior class shoots is right at the start of the field.

If i was to guess i would say that considering the Excelsior class examples contradict themselves from before an after the activation that the torps onboard the platforms were not activated for the first scene due to the powerstation being offline but were for the last scene as it had been pumping power into them.

It is just a theory but as the Excelsior class literally contradicts itself by a munimum of 50% and logically more as the other ships likely fired on the first platform it took two shots to kill summat changed.

How do you interpret what is happening here? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-_4RG0XrcA It looks to me like the warpcore is going offline. The core sparks, then the M/AM streams sputter, then we hear the ominous diminuendo hum that signals a power loss. Immediately prior to that we see the Scimitar land a hit first on the Engineering Section, then the port nacelle. Either one of those could have disabled the warp drive, but we're shown a clear view of the core itself being damaged. Shinzon's initial salvo, right after Picard orders evasive maneuvers, shows at least 7 disruptor hits we can see (as 12 we can infer, given the rate of fire) to the main body of the ship, at least two of which hit the Engineering Section. Shinzon doesn't appear to be targeting the nacelles much. This whole sequence makes it clear to me that the problem with the warp drive is the core itself, not any of the other systems that make it up (like interrupted plasma flow, inability to form warp field, inoperable nacelle, etc).

And the phaser banks were reduced to 4% as a result of the prolonged fight, which indicates to me that the phasers can be supplemented only to a point. They can be fully charged by means other than the warp core, but their combat effectiveness diminishes more quickly. Data specifically states that "phaser banks are down to 4%," impying they weren't at 4% when the battle started, and were reduced to 4% as a result of the combat.

Maybe you are right but we both know that taking out the warp drive has always been pretty easy while targeting and taking out the warp core is normally a LOT harder and is reserved for ship you wanna make go boom quickly, not only that but they had shielded it and that is somethng we have never seen a trek ship do before battle prior to nemmisiss i think......plot requirements are a pain in the ass.

I did not count the phaser shots but from maybe full to 4% over the battle seems like a significant drop considering its duration and that i did not feel a excessive amount of phaser shots were fired over that time.

None of that is in dispute. The hits from the Lakota did reduce the Defiant's shields to almost nothing, however. Dax states that "shields are almost gone." The Lakota came off worse in the exchange, and would have been defeated had the fight continued. That is not in doubt. You posit that, given that the Defiant was not fighting to her full potential, she would have easily defeated the Lakota had she done so. However, that same argument works against you since the Lakota herself was not fighting to her full potential, as per Captain Benteen: "My orders were to disable the Defiant, not destroy her."

Neither vessel was using its full abilities. Had both done so, the Defiant still would have one, but the margin would still have been close.

Not just that it was not fighting at its full potential but that it was woefully unsuited for a fight of that nature as it is setup to destroy rather than disable, the fact the Lakota was trying to disable as well did not reduce its effectiveness by the same amount it did the defiant's due to the comparitive weapons accuracy of both ships.